The Alchemy of Green

I tried to paint a mourning that didn’t hurt,
dipping my brush into the brightest yellow I could find—
the color of survival, once the color of son,
the color of I am okay.

I laid it thick across the clear sheet of today,
trying not to cover the past
but to bring it with me into the next scene.

But you know the physics of this book now—
the pages are glass, not paper.

And deep beneath my layer of yellow sunlight
lies the permanent midnight blue, sometimes black,
of losing you.
The indigo of a silence that started at nineteen.

I thought the darkness would spoil the light.
I thought the blue would swallow the gold.

I tried to outsmart grief—
it already knew my name.

But as the layers settled,
something impossible happened.

The yellow of my living
sank into the blue of your absence,
and the world didn’t turn grey.

It turned green.

That wild, impossible emerald green.
The color of the fields you loved.
The color of the heritage you wore like armor,
the family crest tattooed over my heart
that reads jackiemac4ever beneath it.

I see it now.

Every time I let a little light in,
it doesn’t push you away.
It just mixes with the memory of you
to paint the whole world
in your color.

(No hashtags necessary on this one)