She doesn’t know what she wants
to be named,
only that the tea-stained name
she’s heard over decades of being talked at
doesn’t fit.

She’s a survivor but her feelings get
purple sometimes.
She sees in color
what others only hear.
Words are rainbow realities.

And she’s confused for a moment when
In a casual conversation
They say “now you understand”
Because she understood before.
But they are only now realizing it.

And she wants to tell them in
scratchy red sounds
That they are dense dull grey
because they think they
did something sparkly pink

When really it’s that she
finally was able to
make them translucent that she
understands like sky blue
but not that she already understood.

And it’s okay if they think they’re forest green.
It’s okay to not look like a winner.
But sometimes she is
taupe tired
Of how they think she is stupid.

Maybe he was right
And she doesn’t really know anything.
But she thinks she knows that
She is not what they think she is
Or who they think she is.

And she can see the words.
And she can smell the colors
And taste sound in hues of sunshine and storms.
And there is a nameless sense that
She has never been good at interpreting.

Sometimes her thoughts don’t think in words at all.
And she wonders if life is this confusing -
This rust orange and lime green plaid
For everyone or
anyone else.

This chaos of emotion and auburn literality
And vibrance and the unnamed yellow sense.
Or if to everyone else,
It’s all lined up straight and clean and periwinkle and cream
Like pastel waves of sound.

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