Tori Kafkas – Red

Tori Kafkas | Red

You liked the stars, always telling me that no matter where we are, the stars above our minuscule heads in this large world keep us together—that we are always under the same stars. Someday, we would join the stars together, and then we would be inseparable.

You liked stoplights, the free-standing ones at night that would illuminate a bright red through the blue tint surrounding the depth of your eyes. You would scream out bursts of laughter when the light turned green, squeezing my hand with each of the three counts. I would joke around and call it luck, or maybe it was something else quite inexplicable. The stoplights were yours, the seat next to you was mine. The initials carved into your beat-up dash with your grandma’s old house key made sure of it.

We are taught at an early age that red signals to stop, and green signals to go. To you, it was always so much more than that—beauty within pain, and a soul within a physical entity. It was never just red and green to you, even if it was to me.

I do not like stoplights. At least when they turn green, and the rusted, beat down, California blue SUV mistakes the burnt illuminating red for a bright green. Perhaps among the impact this SUV was searching for the blue in your eyes, too. The colors you always used to love, I could never see them like you did, I chose to see the blue in your eyes, and the stars above our heads. I do not like stoplights, and a vastly different but so similar California blue seems to follow me everywhere, too.

The stars have been shining brighter lately, and sometimes when I look up, I see a light twinkle three times, and I realize that California blue has some beauty in it after all.