Throw-Back Thursday

TRIGGER WARNING

I Bleed Purple

Though The Brutal Shade of the color purple tends to show up on arms and eyes, purple thoughts and purple feelings exist too. Yes, my blood beams blue while inside of me, collected and connected to all the things about me; and yes, once spilled, whether like a cup of boiling milk or a bottle of just popped wine, the primal originality of me turns red, no longer bordered but bared, when in contact with the air I breathe. But what happens when the colors mix?

When they mix, I wondered, while just sixteen, in English class, after my favorite teacher had discussed with us the almighty importance of Antigone. Us in the small wooden desks, mine with the dying purple-penned graffiti, that read: “We are the colors of the rainbow”, with a crude rainbow all in purple beneath. I sat and I wondered: do my blues and reds make up me?

Not long after that, we, well, of course my boyfriend and I, you know, the school year of firsts and he’s just such a great guy, we couldn’t stop talking since the moment we met, and I bet to myself that he would confess that he loves me first, though my die-for friend of eleven years claimed that this boy was a cherry Sour Patch Kid shaped gun in my purse- My grandma smells like cherry, and I like Sour Patch Kids. My friend doesn’t know what she’s talking about, she’s never even had a boyfriend. So why then is she giving me advice when her colors are still whole?

I took him in every day like pills, and pulled apart my blood type compatible friends until they were copies of themselves. All the while he sucked out samples of my blood, one by one, filled up little mason jars that were decorated with happy thoughts like on Tumblr, so I was convinced that he was the organically flavored-cherry gum that stuck my heinous thoughts to my reality, I mean wasn’t he? But suddenly I couldn’t depend on myself; I needed his meds to keep me sane, connected to myself, though every day, I felt drained. Every kiss, sweet kiss, all his, watering me down, sometimes my lipstick left marks on his soft, stubbly skin and he frowned, but I had never experienced such day dreams come to life before, so when he left his initials on my neck in pretty browns and reds I thought: ha, what the heck, how romantic. My parents didn’t think so, so for the first time in my life I was grounded, rooted to my bedroom floor in an attempt to remember who had founded me but I am far too stubborn, and my roots dug deep, through the ceiling and to the bottom floor, and I played his tune on the locked front door until I sang my restless week-old blueberry thoughts to sleep. May I savor the flavor of red and be me?

And then, we were at the park. It was kind of dark but I knew the place well. I have spent hours of my life on the faded maroon swings with my cloud drifting thoughts, and I fondly remembered the day that, well, I was pissed off, and behind me my boyfriend walked near and pulled me into a black licorice flavored hug, told me he loved me and I felt as if I could fly into this valentine’s day colored love. So why was I suddenly afraid to try for him? As I looked in his trucks review mirror and noticed my skin pulsed dirty ocean on a cloud day blue, it had thinned from lack of sleep and his tendency to test the contents of my mason jars. What color were they now?

Late night once more, a weekend of course, so my parents would let me stay till one, thank you God, I didn’t have to creep out and watch the IV’s drag in my shadow, guilty. Yet I felt the need to creep out from under him, open the truck window, fill up my lungs with the Earth’s fresh dark blue air away from him, rip the wires out of me, but just as I clutched the door handle to shove and leap, time escaped from me and flushed bloody Mary kisses raged fierce all over me and I fell into his good-intentions as they pierced previously poked empathy. I tried to glance upward to see the stars, but his kisses drowned the few that I could see above the oblivious city lights, suddenly I felt so seriously far away. My eyes widened until they were oceans as I witnessed the glittering yellow dreams blink into darkness with little fight, I had to blink to remember the darkness that presented itself like a present in my current life, wrapped in baby blue, adjourned with a shimmery red bow, I had no clue what I had gotten myself into. All I could feel were the clear plastic tubes in my veins, straining against every decision I had yet to make. Could my colors mix if the tubes were too twisted?

And then, “I don’t know” magically transformed into “yes”; “I don’t know” meant caress every inch of me baby, borrow my individuality, baby, it meant “fuck me now” until I cried tears the color of one white t-shirt mixed in with all the reds maybe, but “maybe” meant do it; and do it meant I’ll fill up your red cup with drink, baby, all for you baby, because I love you baby, you know I do, and I know you love me too so don’t worry yourself too much baby that the most dear, blue specks of me are spilling out onto the floor in foreign reds like fallen puzzle pieces, chewed on by toddlers, making me feel crazy baby, all the while this is the deepest I have ever felt your soul baby, and I do not know if I like your color(?)

I knew that it was wrong, I knew I should not have had to feel like I did not belong to my own body, that I should not have to feel the blue lakes of me crash into the red flames of me as a frustrated tsunami that was me that had no choice but to wash over his desperate city. And yet all I wanted was to build his city high, so high, so he knew he could fly with my Valentine’s red love and reach stars with that love because everyone deserves to be loved like they are the reason for the humbling color of love that only comes out of us when we choose we are safe. Can colors be safe?

I. Was. Not. safe. (?)

I bled all over the back seat, but he did not seem to mind for once about his precious pick-up truck. He was relaxed now, at ease, so who cared, we could clean up a couple globs of my mind afterwards, isolate the wounds and chop off the infected limbs afterwards, rip out the week old IV’s and replace them with fresh ones afterwards. Or so he thought. So I thought. So we walked hand in hand, from his truck to my car, and I kissed him goodbye, and I watched as he drove off towards his house like a sailor, contented and oblivious, I wished suddenly that he were across the sea, attempting to be pescatarian instead of carnivorous. I remained in my car, cold, dank, and drab, for an hour and a half until my ambiguous colors sank into a half emptied McDonald’s cup that lay in the holder, brown and flat as the marks on my neck that suddenly began to sting. I thought, did I lose my color?

The next day, when I glanced in my bedroom mirror, I found that my skin glowed bright, neon purple. I didn’t know what to do except fear that I was broken. I felt broken, forbidden, suddenly ridden of everything that makes my eyes bright, I missed my alone in the steaming shower blue and late night diary red, might I be myself ever again? I wondered desperately as I tucked my IV’s under my sleeves.

And then, a calculating five months later I packed my belongings and I moved away from his magnetic blue and his electric red. I walked away with my ghostly head down, though I should have strut away with my colors flouncing into the sky like fireworks reaching beyond society’s wildest color chart. Have my colors fallen apart?

It wasn’t until a year and a half later that I packed my belongings and I moved away from Home’s childhood blanket blue and tied together like a knight’s chain male red. And as I settled in my blank slated dorm and tentatively made a few friends that were butterfly blue with a hint of a purplish storm, the beautiful kind, I discovered that I am in no shape or form a picture of emotional deformity no matter how much I think I am, no matter how much his blazing face haunts my mind and has me on the bed staring down an IV like addicting contraband. I discovered that my lovely blue and wild red need to fuse together like old friends in order to defend who I am, who I will become, in order to strike down the mason jars that I had spent so much of my vulnerability on. I will ease to my knees and use the contents to paint my image of me, and then I can truly be happy. Can mixed colors be happy?

What took me years, took him minutes, I choked on him while he suckled on his ignorance. Maybe something wrong was becoming a memory, something moldy grey was embedding itself in me, and I gave it permission because I was silently told to believe, constantly, that I am not a great girlfriend, I am not even a good girlfriend, not even a good girl, if I do not sacrifice myself for him, if he does not save me from myself in the end, but you know I am the only one who can take a deep breathe when I am drowning in myself so I thank the world every day for the purple hue in my veins because I bleed purple, and that is okay.

I am not 1 + 1 = 2, I am 1 and 1 and 2 = 3, which makes up every inch of me.

I am purple like royal wind blown gowns, purple as wishing star nights aligned into sound, as a favorite stuffed animal, purple as a plum loving its roots, as a hippo bathing in the cool of a fresh water pool, as purple as a purple pen’s first time on paper, as a special edition lavender MNM, and purple like the scented candle my mom would light in the evenings to help us sleep off sick flavors, the sweetest purple of a cupcakes frosted appendages, I bleed purple.

And Purple is not bad; no matter how much we are told every moment that life is black and white, it is not simply two colors, one separated from the other, life is made up of The Horrible and Wonderful Occurrences, those moments help us discover what colors make up us, what summers and springs and falls and winters draw on us as years float by, and we grow with colors in our eyes and blood in our veins screaming that YES! We Are Alive.

So, yes, I bleed purple and that is okay.