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Spectrum by Janille Lowe

I realized one day that I never wanted anything I cared about to resemble the color grey. I wanted everything I loved to be marked with a scarlet letter, every person I knew to have a Van Gogh-like mural spread across their body. I did not want one corner to go untouched by coloration. So I ran around with my endless palette offering anyone my shades upon shades. Letting them pick and choose the ones they liked best. I carried my tints on tones with handfuls of glitter, throwing them at loved ones in the hopes that their skin, with that calm film of sparkle, would imitate the night sky. No longer dull but gleam something like molten lava. First a fierce red, raging and rushing over things that weren’t significant enough to break their stride, covering the land so far and wide that when exhaustion finally hit, they lay still. And favor that of precious onyx. Deep obsidian, penetrating black like the outline I traced of their silhouettes inside prayers trusting that the blush of paint stained and wouldn’t drip out. I enthusiastically eviscerated myself so that others could use those crimson droplets for courage. I didn’t hide these deep-violet bruises just so they could feel beautiful, so they could finally feel handsome. I stand mounted between you and words like silver bullets so that your rivers of color wouldn’t flow away from you. I need you to know that I don’t mind being discolored. I don’t mind being marked and smeared. I want you to look and see that these specks don’t bother me—without these spots you won’t see—my texture is compromised. I don’t blend I coagulate; I fired my own value and wash into the sky like streams of fireworks, handed out swatches of my rouge. So saturate me . . . give me your discarded hues and dyes so that I may mirror vibrancy. I embrace this blotched pigment so that others can recognize you truly for you: a masterpiece. Me? Vandalized . . . tarnished with dreams of being embellished. I did this because, see, to me the color grey is cruel. That middle ground between uncertainty and rotting, an opaque solstice, not living and inanimate. It is kind enough to cushion you from the absence of colored darkness, but vindictive enough to refract enough light to let you see how blank you really are. My aura turned emerald green with the thought of being like you . . . something worth looking at. Doused in pure iridescence you choose to ignore. I’m worrying daily that the masks I’ve illustrated can no longer hide this neutral tinge. You’re someone’s favorite Technicolor while others will realize and see that I will never be awe inspiring . . . bathed in watercolors, soft pastels never striking or alarming . . . and I worry that these yellow-red undertones are fading and that I will again become an overlooked statue in the courtyard. I resemble grey. A somber spectral purgatory desperately anticipating another electrifying countenance so that I may possibly become someone’s—or my own—favorite color.

About the Author

Janille Lowe is a first-generation college student in her fifth and final year at WSU; she will be receiving degrees in criminology and psychology and a minor in Asian studies. Her time here has been the most beautiful, destructive, and healing time of her young life. Her poetry is a literary reflection of her activism: militant, inclusionary, and vulnerable. She would like to thank all the friends who have twerked and laughed away the pain of life with her.