Loving Colors

by Julia Wheelehan | POETRY CATEGORY WINNER

Loving a girl is pink. It’s pink satin sheets,

Pulled up to the chest. It’s tanned feet and

Pink toes wadding over smooth skipping

Stones in clear water. It’s soft long hair, tied

Up with a pink bow and arms wrapped in pink

Gauze. It’s gentle and loving, thumbs brushing

Over sticky, pink lip gloss. It’s looking up

Through full lashes, pink glitter sparkling.

Loving a boy is green. It’s running barefoot

Through grassfields as the moon dances

Between stratus clouds. It’s sharing apple

Slices—green and sweetly sour. It’s sunlight

Streaming through patches of leaves, each

Green and the size of a hat. It’s fumbling

Hands, breathless and eager, tumbling Between

green checkered sheets.

​Loving myself is orange. It’s a slice of a

Tart tangerine and ripe peach. Dancing on

Halloween by bonfires. It’s watching the

Sun set, the light bronzing everything. It’s

Hands wrapping around fading stretch

Marks with careful apathy. It’s looking

At rusting cars and crumbling sunflowers

Through windows. A warning: good god, stay away.

​​Loving a woman is blue. It’s fresh iris

Flowers in cups that double as vases. It’s

Cliff jumping into crystalline blue waters,

Wind whipping my hair around. It’s cloud

Watching on spring afternoons, the blue

Sky matching my eyes. It’s a line of blue

Texts getting sent in the morning. It’s

Matching nails after a spa day and

Watching wild waves crash onto cliffs.

Loving a man is red. It’s red lip marks

On shirt collars. It’s empty bottles of

Merlot, leaving circles on oak tables.

Nights of scratches on a back with beads

Of blood left behind. It’s crushed velvet

Dresses, trailing over freshly fallen snow.

Dozens roses crushed under dress shoes and

The weight of broken promises. It’s Open

boxes of scarlet lingerie.

​Loving myself is white. It’s blindingly

Bright and brilliant—the midday sun

Streaking in through the blinds, right

Into my eyes. It’s rotting and empty,

Each breath a burden, Atlas and all

His weight on my chest. It’s the perfect

Marble columns, thin veins of gold and

A loving goddess carved at the top. It’s

A clean white slate—ready for ruinous creation.