Author: Molly Brubaker

Everyone keeps telling me

They hate the

Cold.

Where is their childhood?

I walked into the family room the other day and

My dad was watching football

And November snow was melting outside.

I am ten years old again.

Some days, winter returns

From 2016.

Do they not welcome it back?

I always find it funny

How the best friendships

Bloom from good-natured insults and fiery debates.

It’s as if we can say,

I know this about you.

You know this about me.

And together, we can point out each other’s flaws

In a glorious dance

While screaming,

Maybe these flaws aren’t so unspeakable after all.

Some nights, my body is a cemetery

Of all the things I needed to get done.

Laundry and sending that one email and putting that stupid dish away.

But I sit, and scroll, and scroll and scroll

As it turns 10 pm, 10:30, 11, 12,

And I feel as if I’m glued to the floor.

All I can do is scream at my brain

And ask,

What are you waiting for?

Is it coming at all?

Sometimes I wonder why anger is so empowering.

I wonder why it’s all bloody knuckles, teeth grinding hard, throat scratched hoarse from screamed confessions that nobody ever really means.

I hate hate hate the way it gives me energy, motivation, a sense of purpose in the worst way possible.

It makes me sick.

Mama, I don’t feel so good. Somebody ticked me off again.

But then I can stand again, because I have something to do, something to hate.

I am safe, miles away from any sort of embarrassment or judgment or stupid stupid guilt.

But I remember.

Why does anger give so much power?

Because it rips away our self-set boundaries, tears out the little white picket fence telling us that we can’t always get what we want.

Yes, I can. I can punch kick scream hit until I get what I want, who cares about you?

And I don’t blame us.

Who ever wants to accept that?

Sometimes I wonder why sadness grips us by the throat.

It fills our eyes and burns our nose, blurs the world whisking past.

It’s a knife stuck in our chest but we leave it in there, let it sting, let it bleed bleed bleed on other people.

But I remember.

Why does fear cut off our oxygen?

It rips down angry walls, and fiery red words turn slow and blue and easily broken. 

And it’s earth-shattering to admit to oneself,

Maybe I will say that in this moment I’m a little awful after all.

I used to wonder why contentment is so fleeting.

I wondered why gratification and satisfaction slip from my fingers faster than tiny grains of sand slipping through an hourglass.

I see a moment of tranquility but it’s a mote of dust in the sunlight, and it whisks away as soon as I reach out to grasp it.

But I always remember.

How does it flee so fast?

Contentment is brilliant stained glass, easily shattered but not so easily pieced back together.

But I think there must be something thicker stronger tougher out there, right?

What else could we possibly be searching for?

Synesthesia.

Such a funny word for an ethereal thing.

Purple is

My cousin and best friend, with long dark curls and fuzzy horse sweaters.

My brother, who is quick to yield when an argument threatens to break out and tumble away with the conversation.

Saturday. The day when things are almost done. I’ve got time to relax. If I just finish one more project…

I must be rambling

But why do these colors float in my head?

Red is

Another brother, sporting bright shoes and perfectly fixed hair.

Anger, hot and dry and sharp and safe. I slice others with my words, too well-placed. They hurt me too like that.

I don’t have a lot of Blues or Greens.

I guess because I never liked them too much.

Yellow is my favorite.

Yellow is

Daisies weaved in wild hair,

Laughing as we spin till we’re dizzy on the front yard in June.

Torn-paper scraps of poetry that I glue to every surface I can get my hands on.

That one pretty song I can’t stop harmonizing with

And the way a smile lights me up like scattered headlights on the dark night highway.

I wanna scream.

The world is a rainbow.

And if you think I’m crazy,

Maybe your glasses are still blurred by the rain.

Cold wind blows on my cheeks.

I hug my green jacket tight.

I am on the corner of a block in New York City, glancing at myself in the shop window, watching my wild hair dance with the wind.

The sky is cloudy and sad, longing for something, I think, maybe August.

But the skyscrapers stretching up sing of Hope.

I let icy air fill my lungs and cross the road, listening to the traffic whisking by.

I used to hate the rain.

The sky turned sad and wet and cried for no reason.

But now, now something has changed.

Some sad gray inside myself

Finds peace and solidarity with the sky

When we cry for no reason.

And I’m thinking,

Who knew the sky and I had so much in common?

Oh my

Oh my

I just found out you’re colorblind.

Is that why you always said

My art was trash?