Emotions and Colours, The Rainbow Kind

I think Fear would be a man. They would appear differently to different people but I think Fear would be a man, if it one day appeared to me. I think it would be an old, bearded man with too wide eyes and a white cloak like the man in the book I read about in Secondary School. The moment I saw him my breath would catch in my throat and I'd fall to the floor because he's had a hold of me for so many years, you'd think I'd be used to it but somehow... Not quite.

I also think Fear would be faceless. Because it's taken so much from so many, who could ever give it a face. Fear and its only kryptonite, Courage. It exists to teach us how to meet his counterpart but many don't and who can blame us? Sometimes, in the process of desperately struggling to just survive, we lose the ability to simply live.

I think Love would be a woman. A pretty black woman who is the size of a building, with wide hips and giant hair in the biggest afro known to man. It would sit on her head like the sun and her smile would make the littlest thing swoon. Her body would be soft and round all over, a tummy swelled with love and chocolate, hips adorned in gold and silver and rose petals, the familiarity of an old friend that will never quite leave the memory.

I think Happiness is a child. Because who else would one imagine? To me, one stops being a child the moment the weight on the world begins to be felt. The moment the demands of society and the need to conform grow. And if that is a child, many of us became adults much too young. Much too young. Happiness is a child with flowers in her hair and freckles on her cheeks, running and whopping and shouting and never stopping, no matter how silly they look. He has pretty fair hair and glowing eyes that never, ever lose their sparkle. If only they could stay a while longer. He is the colour of yellows and whites and pinks, the colour of teddy bears and sleepovers and wide smiles a person tries to but can't hide, the colour of the sun itself. Never a dull day with that one, fills you up to the very depths.

But so does Sadness. So do Empty and Numb, the brothers two, spreading tales of woe. To be empty, to be numb, is to be dead in a living body. At least, that's what it feels like. They are there for a reason, of course. When life is not being lived enough, they slide right over, to remind us we must feel it. To remind us this is existence and to exist is to simply be, sometimes, no matter how quiet or still or painful. They are always silent. For some, they are old friends, for some, they are strangers, but we all know them don't we?

Anger then is the colour red, by popular demand. All hot and burning and consuming. I'd rather think of Anger as black. Like tar. Dripping, scorching tar. That's how it appears to me. Slinks in, he, holding out his hand for me to finally give in for once. Because I don't experience her as much as it would like me to. I choose to suck it in and the darkness pollutes my heart, burns me in an all-consuming fire and I pretend all is well. So our friendship goes, ever pretending we do not know each other.

Colours are fun. I started wondering about them when I read a book where everyone was assigned their colour by the narrator. I wonder which one I would be. I'd love to be a pretty pink or a pure white. An earthy rich brown, a peaceful light blue, a warm orange a yellow. I'd like to be elegant like purple or bright and passioned like a trail of reds. Today I am grey. And that's alright, too. I greet Empty and Numb like old friends. They whisper "live" and I whisper "no, not right now, loves, I can hardly move today" and we repeat our old routine that we all know by heart.

Maybe I'll dance with the yellow of Happiness some day. Joy is such a bright, pretty colour, isn't he? Maybe I'll tango in the depths of fire and brimstone with my red Anger, blinding my eyes as we try and fail to avoid the heat. Maybe I'll dance fluidly, smoothly with Calm. They are peace. They are wisps of smoke from an old, small, sage green teapot and the silent rustle of air through the trees. Colourless, most times. They remind you of the brothers two but much kinder, much more comforting.

Perhaps I'll be unlucky. Perhaps Fear and I, or Anxiety, as I call him, will speak once again. I try to keep my distance but there's not much you can do when all you've ever known from the very start of life as you know it is to be in unease, discomfort, waiting, treading lightly on a tightrope of your own design as your inevitable demise inches closer and closer with no warning.

I like this shade of blue, though. I think every human has a rainbow inside them. We are all capable of every single colour, it just depends on what each colour means to you and how well you can tell. I am currently a shade of blue. This particular hue is commonly given to Sadness, although mine is too grey to be called any other colour most times. Today, my Sadness is blue, for once. A light blue, a sad blue, a tired blue. It's warm and comforting in its dull familiarity. It asked me to write this and I did as told, hoping it would make sense, hoping it would help, hoping I could understand myself for even a moment, even at all.

My Sadness is blue and so am I. My inner child is blue too, but not the colour. Blue in the way it feels sick to the stomach, nauseous and unable to breathe. Their face is blue from holding back screaming. If you keep holding yourself back from feeling all the reds, blacks and greys, all the creeping dark shades in the room, you will always end up throwing it all up or suffocate it till something in you dies, if you'd like. Because something must die if you're held under too long, don't you agree? I let her die. She loves me but I couldn't save her, and every time I kill her again, she shows again the next time with a smile on her face and forgiveness in her eyes. Too kind. Much too kind. In a world that never deserved her kindness.

My inner child and every other part of who or what I am is a rainbow trapped in chains. That is my colour, that is why I can't tell you for sure which I am most times. I tell them it's too much colour and add yet another shackle to myself. For the good of the world, I tell myself. I'm only trying to protect you, I tell myself. The old man rears his ugly head and smiles at me. Fear is a smoke with no flame that I have followed a long time. I met them as a child and eagerly let them in. Because I was promised safety. They broke that promise. But they have grown too familiar to leave and that is where the colours will forever stay. Trapped, as I am. I gain nothing and lose nothing, just hang treacherously in the balance.

Perhaps if I was a different hue this fateful day, I'd have written a prettier tune. But this mess is a part of me and I a part of it. And with that, I wish you a good day, one full of rainbows and rainbows alone.