Lives Together
Blush.
For the strange feelings you might feel, the youthful uncertainty of first love. The pink-red coming over your tanned, freckled nose, the look of confusion on your face as you are unable to comprehend what is happening as you look at her.
Blush.
Rosy colors in her cheeks as she notices you shyly glancing at her. Her own olive-toned face, now a deeper shade that looks like an orchid. Her favorite flower, you remember, as you fall deeper into love.
Blush.
The color of the sunset you gaze at with her—your first date. It took forever to get up the courage to ask her, but you're glad you did so. Now it's the two of you, and the sunset has never seemed more red with sweet happiness.
Blush.
It's the barrette in her long, dark locks as she speaks, the barrette you're trying to look at as her kind but devastating words fall harshly on your ears. I can't hang out with you anymore...my mother doesn't want...I have to go to college...
You don't want to hear it, but you have to. This is life, this is the world, and you are not rich, you are poor and only a stupid boy who tries too hard but will never be the wealthy, genius college man she's supposed to marry. You blink and all you can see is that blush barrette, bobbing in the hair of a girl who will never be able to love you back.
Blush.
You hate it, that your ears go this color when you see her again. You're supposed to be friends, only friends now. Her mother wouldn't approve. But you don't care, somehow. You let the pink and red spread over your face as she smiles broadly, happy to see you. So happy—has she gotten a boyfriend yet, in that fancy college of hers? You wonder, but you dare not ask.
Blush.
The color of the roses you bring her that Valentine's day. You can't help it, and you can't help the stupid grin that comes over your face when she laughs that guffaw-like laugh she has. And as she does, you wonder if you have a chance. You've got a better job now—your time in trade school is done and you're branching out as an electrician. What if...
Blush.
Her cheeks again, bright as the flower in her hair, the flower that you put there in an effort to be romantic. She's almost teary as you get down on one knee, trying not to fall over in your anxiety. You think you know the answer, but you're not sure...you've never been sure of much, not completely.
Blush.
That's you, now, as she whoops "yes" over and over again in her tomboyish way, as she throws her arms around you and nearly knocks you over, never mind that she's as tiny as a precious violet and you're tall as a tough sunflower. And you're so much in love, but that love is the color of every time you've ever seen her.
Blush.
The color of love.
Orange blossom.
That's the color of the blooms in your hair, neither white nor yellow but both. You look in the mirror and you smile jubilantly, adjusting the veil in your long dark tresses as you imagine him waiting outside by the two trees that will serve as the end of the aisle. You're a shining maiden waiting for the greatest day of her life to begin. As you step out of the house that will soon be in the past, your parents' house, your mother adjusts the flowers in your hair. Her gown is the same color as the blossoms—creamy yellow and white, now a symbol of her heart's love for you as she loses a part of her family.
And outside the pales leaves on the beeches are similarly colored, for the new life and love of this day.
Orange blossom—the color of youthful joy on a wedding day.
Springsong
The color of the green shoots coming out of the ground as the happy couple walks the last few steps to their new house. The color of life, and spring, and joy. Pale green, green of new leaves and new love and new hopes.
"Look at the morning glories, already growing up the trellis," she says.
"You were right, they've come so fast," says the man.
"Remember sowing them?"
"Yes. I didn't think they'd grow so quickly."
Green, springsong vines waver in the wind, but cling steadily, full of expectation and growth.
"It's not baby blue, it's periwinkle baby."
They look at the pale sea and sky walls of the nursery. The mother-to-be crosses her arms triumphantly over her belly as she grins at her befuddled husband.
"Have it your way," he says, shrugging. "Always the poetic one."
She is, and they know it. Periwinkle baby, she thinks. Fresh and new and uncertain and curious. And hopefully calm. She smiles, despite the backache. She can't wait.
Violet stars.
That's the color of the girl's eyes, twinkling in the lights of the hospital room as her mother smiles down at her puckered baby face.
"She looks like you," the father says, rubbing the soft dark fuzz of her hair and peering into those alert, purply orbs that gaze out at this new and exciting world. She's calm, calm as the periwinkle baby paint coating the walls of her and her brother's nursery at home.
"And he looks like you," the mother replies with a tired grin, patting her son's back soothingly; he wasn't so happy to come into the world. The storm of last night had been in earnest when he was born, and he had wailed with the strike of lightning that lit his arrival as firstborn.
The girl does not care, however. Her violet star eyes only bead with her father's proud affection, and she gurgles happily.
"You're going to be happy to go home, won't you?" the father asks, tickling under the folds of fat on her neck. "Little Violet."
Home, yes. The twins will grow up in the house with the springsong vines growing up the front. They will see the dried orange blossom flowers their mother wore on her wedding day; Violet will play with them as a little girl. And when they are gone and grown their parents will remember the blush that colored their faces at the beginning, the beginning of a life journey together.