I was standing in front of a variety of buckets of paint. I dipped myself in paint after paint.
I was in search of answers.
Soon I was multi-colored and dripping in knowledge.
I dipped and dipped more and a brilliant rainbow blossomed.
I dipped and dipped, covering every inch of me, until the colors all merged.
Then, and only then, I was the color of black.
But it did not bother me, this guise, this dark, this black.
For I knew all the other colors were still there, still with me, and now in me.
But then the “experts” and “professionals” entered the room, where I stood dripping black. And they observed. Their clipboards and furrowed brows moving in an unwanted rhythm. The dance of them entering my mind and hurting my being.
And they looked and looked where I stood—noting this black shroud upon me.
And I knew then that they were blind, that they could not see all the colors.
They only saw black.
They were quick to form theories about this black. And they were quick to find words, and labels, and meaning.
They assumed since I was garbed in black that I liked black, and only black. They assumed what they saw was the truth.
They couldn’t see.
They couldn’t see that just as black was my companion, so was every other color. Colors they had never imagined.
I couldn’t explain the colors to them. I couldn’t go back and show them where I’d been. I didn’t know how.
I didn’t know the words.
I was blind to their words, as they were blind to my colors.
To them I needed black.
To them I was black.
To them this end product of black was their everything.
They didn’t know that black was merely the mixing of everywhere I’d searched and everything I’d questioned.
They didn’t know that black was not the end product. There were still more colors to find. Still more colors to be.
But when they looked, they saw black.
They gathered their boxes next.
They needed boxes like I needed colors.
I understood that we both craved things that the other did not see or comprehend.
But somehow I was supposed to accept and understand their boxes. Even though they do not attempt to see my colors.
This made me cry inside. This disconnection. And the black grew darker, thick and coated. A darkness that stopped the colors from seeping through. And stopped me from dipping and dripping. Stopped me from being.
And as I was black to them, I was placed in their box of black.
And from there, in the box, I watched them write the words of who I am.
I could not tell them how these words made me feel. I was too busy crying for the lost colors.
How I longed for them to see my colors. To see me in completion. How I longed for them to dip.
For then I knew they would see.
They would see what I see.
And through their dipping and dripping
They would soon discover
That their boxes never existed.