Question of the chapter– What is your color ? Song of the chapter- COLORS by Halsey

TRIGGER WARNING– mature content ahead ( abuse )

Red

It’s just the kind of feeling you could never ignore, no matter how hard you try to. It’s like the first sip of champagne you stole from your parent’s hidden stock at a sleepover with your friends. It takes your breath away, makes your body tingle with electricity and leaves you dizzy and drunk and crazy.

Champagne. Red.

What it does is ignite a fire inside you. A fire which burns you, consumes you and leaves you craving for another touch. There is a moment between a glance and a touch where the world stops for the briefest of times. The glance is the kindling for the fire burning in your soul, and the touch is the fire itself consuming you. Passionate. Wild. Dangerous. Destructive.

Fire. Burning. Red again. Smoke and ashes.

Love affects the mind in inexplicable ways. It becomes your second skin, suffocating you till you claw at your throat to tear off the skin, willing to experience blinding pain as long as it numbs your throbbing heart. It embeds a hole in your soul and provokes you to let out an uncontrollable flow of emotions. Emotions which act only on extreme ends- rage and anger when he distances himself, ardent jealousy when he stops responding to your texts and desperation which drives you to insane limits- seeking solace and relief in the most trivial of advances, be it a good morning message or a mere nod of acknowledgment in the math class the next day.

Love is red. Love is red and so is blood.

Red is…. Anticipation. Anticipation as you bury the needle sharp end of your compass under your skin, frustrated on not receiving more than a simple, platonic nod. Lines of red marr the porcelain white skin of your hands. One,two,three,four,five. Six. Seven.

March seventh was the day when it all started. You were eight years old when red took another meaning

Red is pain.

Uncontrollable, unimaginable, heart-wrenching pain. You did not know this till your thighs were slick with blood and saliva. Your uncle clasped his meaty hand over your mouth and shushed your screams as he took away your innocence. You begged him to stop. and he told you it was your own fault. Your fault for wearing the short skater skirt and crop top out in the sun. He described the things he was going to do with your body as he slipped his tongue inside your mouth and his hands moved down to your bleeding, throbbing core.

The skirt was red.

Stop signs. Traffic lights. A Taylor Swift song. Fire extinguishers. Apples. Blood. Strawberries. Skater skirts. Roses.

These aren’t things- they are feelings. Red itself is a feeling- danger and fear and pain and despair. Red can also be love, more so the lack of love.

Red is a reminder.

Blue

You wake up in a hospital room. It’s clean. Neat and methodical. It seems perfect, which only cements your suspicions that you do not belong there.

The bed coverlet is blue and scented with the seemingly unavoidable hospital tang- disinfectants and medicine and death. The curtains are blue too, and do little to stop the the sunlight from filtering through the glazed glass panes. You see a bouquet of flowers by the bedside table.

Forget-me-nots. Blue again.

Your wrists are covered with gauze and cuts. They look recent and you cannot remember what happened. You try to speak but the words catch in your throat. Your body screams from the inside, but the voices calm the storm brewing in your head. The voices become more insistent, and the medley of whispers threaten to bring back red once more.

The screams stop.

Heartache is blue. Heartache is pouring out tears incessantly, but not being able to subdue the burning embers of your heart. Smoke and ashes are all you have left.

No, heartache is the absence of blue. Heartache is the throbbing pain and misery which never seems to stop. You want nothing more than to let go, but the fire has not completely gone out, and maybe it never will.

How long do aching hearts ache?

His eyes were blue. Deep, dark blue with a hint of silver around the edges. Those eyes had won your heart the first time you gazed into them, and subsequently broken it time and again. Ironically enough, the same eyes had held unutterable grief and pity the last time you saw them.

The maths class, yes, that was it. The deep, blue orbs had reflected the anguish he felt on seeing your almost lifeless body. He had held your bleeding wrists against his erratically heaving chest and screamed out apologies.

His eyes were a watery blue. As beautiful and deceptive as the ocean.

In the end it was all a facade.

The room. The curtains. The flowers. His eyes.

As ethereal blue might be, in the end it was just as superficial. All that mattered was the red.

Blue might save you, but red will ruin you.

” The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words”- William H. Gass

Many people believe that writing is an escape from reality ,when in contrast it seems to be my very anchor to the same. The universe is infinite, human nature is transient and we are merely flickering candle flames in the smoldering supernova of the endless circle of life and death. In the midst of our struggle to accept this enigmatic concept of reality, putting meandering thoughts into words reiterates my persistent belief that we, as people, matter .

The universe has an unconventional language, far from the twenty six letters engraved in our impressionable toddler minds. This is the language of the flowing autumn breeze and saline oceanic froth, of spilled black coffee and crumpled paper balls, of ink-stained school uniforms and crinkled laugh lines. It is the language shaped by our 3:00 a.m. thoughts and frivolous desires, and made alive by the scars and bruises we all hide within, be it behind long sleeved shirts or an empty, closed off zone way in the back of our minds.

I hope I am able to do the universe justice, as I weave a tale around scattered, forgotten galaxies and zealous celestial explosions, and flirt with the dappling starlight and fairy dust which comes to life under a weathered apple tree. I hope I travel the entirety of the human cosmos while sitting on my stiff-backed, wooden chair, and pave a way lined with fervent joy, inexplicable anger and mind-numbing heartache.

Perhaps this hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have- but I still have it.

And so, I write.

On this note, I bid adieu. The first chapter of our metaphorical journey across the universe will be out soon. Like, comment and share- your support means the world (universe?) to me.