Joy

There was once a girl named Joy

Who liked to paint all in black

She was barely even eight

But she always saw things as they were

The children all avoided her

Her parents didn’t care

Her teachers always worried about her

But to the world, she wasn’t even there

Day after day, Joy would sit down to color

The teacher would put out the supplies

And everyone would make a mad dash

To the pinks and blues and reds

To the colors that made up the rainbows

 To the colors that they saw in their heads

But Joy, she would wait

 There were too many people there, you see

She would wait

And when everyone else was seated

Little Joy would get up, her curls all in a row

And she’d take the black crayon

And sit down very slow

The teacher watched her

For Joy never spoke

She watched in trepidation as Joy’s crayon rose

She watched as Joy drew, and as the day drew to a close

She saw that Joy had colored a beautiful black rose

When all the kids had left, she held Joy back

Why did you paint this in black? she asked Don’t you know roses are red?

Joy, however, just nodded her head. She didn’t say anything, not even a word.

So the teacher just put a note on her paper

Give this to your parents she said. See me, we’re quite concerned.

 See me because Joy doesn’t see the things that she’s learned

Joy nodded her head, and headed on home

But when she returned, she noticed she was all alone.

Her mother was out, as always during the day.

Her father worked hard, and lived far away

But Joy, she did not care. She hung her black rose on the fridge.

And climbed the tree to the backyard.

In the branches, she sat, and looked at the sky

Forever is far away in the human eye

And for Joy the silent, Joy the black

She did not know why she only saw what the world lacked

She wondered why she had no friends, why her mind worked the way it did

She wondered, but only got more confused

And as she sat and stared at the sempiternal sky, the wind ruffled the frills of her dress

Silent, she realized that she didn’t hate the world

But rather reproached the unknown that scared her to death

For life, she knew, was not what it seemed

Thanks to school, she knew that people could be shallow and mean

For Joy, she knew, was well above her years

But Joy, she knew, was not above her tears

And cry she did, and the sky opened up

It scraped the branches of the wooden fingers that held her so tight

The one thing in that moment that was real to her plight.

It took a moment, but Joy sobered up

She got down from the tree, and went about her way

And sooner than later came school the next day.

Like clockwork, the teacher called time for art

And Joy went with the rest of the kids with her head held up

As always, the colors that were bright and overused

Were snatched up in an instant; reds, yellows, and blues

But Joy did not care. She took up her black right under the teacher’s nose

And sat back down and began drawing a single black rose

The teacher’s brow, it furrowed when she got up and hastened to Joy yet again

Joy, she said. I thought I told you that roses are red.

Joy nodded her head, but this time, she was more confident than the start

For she trusted what she was doing; it was from her soul, it was from her head

But the teacher just asked yet again, why hadn’t she colored the rose red?

Slowly, Joy looked up one more time before she looked down at her art

When she looked up at the teacher

She opened her mouth and said

Because sometimes there’s beauty in the things that are dark.

It doesn’t matter what it is if it came from your heart.