The Past

He was the destroyer of color.
Taking it from my lips, with each and every kiss.
When he said goodbye, my skin was grey and my heart was coal.
The color was beat out of me.
I felt punches through threats to harm himself and threats to end me. 
Staying because I thought I needed him so much, and that’s what an abuser will make you feel.
You’ll feel dead, and lonely, and enslaved.
Staying because you believe he is all you have.
And you fall in love with every inch of pain. 
You believe without him is to continue sopping in cloudy days.

2 years go by…
And when I saw my own life flash before my eyes, I did not care whether I lived or died.
I crashed my car into its side, exhausted.
Only opening my eyes to realize my brother almost died. 
Smoke blew in my nose from a thousand different directions.
I could breathe but my throat was so tight, and guilt was my ultimate suffocator.
I love him so much, more than I will ever say.
I was paralyzed.
My hands wouldn’t move and my ears wouldn’t hear and my eyes wouldn’t see.
I tried to scream but my body wouldn’t let me.
And I wanted to cry, and I almost did a very bad thing.
The car almost killed him, and that would have destroyed me more than gray ever had. 
If I suffocated then, how much more would I have suffocated? 
The actions drowned me in blues to realize a truth.
My life is so much greater than me.

And the pain I had felt drove me to appreciate every happy
moment. And now I have colors absorbed in me.
Pastels to dance in, eliminating my apathy.
And without the past, I would have never been this strong.

To know the gray and find color is how I appreciate the world.

I couldn’t live without it.