You were yellow...
Golden: like the rays of sunshine glittering on the ripples of the lake. Your aura danced in the wind, on the back of a wish of a dandelion seed - happy, playful - a prayer of hope.
You were yellow - the color of happiness, the wistful shade of joy, innocence in the giggle of a child.
You were.. my best friend.
As time aged us both, I saw new colors creep in — red, green, black — like dry brushstrokes on your golden canvas. Barely there... but there enough to see if you got really close.
I watched as you tried to cover it up, tried to adjust the lighting to highlight those golden hues in order to keep attention off of the rainbow stains -
When those stains crept further, spreading across your canvas like water through a paper thin towel - You changed... started swallowing poison, slow sips at first, trying to blind yourself to the mess.
No longer caring about what others saw, but only trying to
cope
with your own shame.
I tried to take the poison from your hands, tried to reason it's release from your clutch... enlisted others to try to coax the bottle away.
But you held on with a firm grip and desperate words.
You held on to the bottle tighter than you held onto our bond..
You cut away at my hands with smashed glass and sloshed words..
Your gold faded
- lost it's sparkle -
tainted by the poison you so desperately craved.
I could do nothing but watch as you took the brushes from your demons - easily, willingly...
and dipped those brushes into large pots of black...
and began recklessly flailing at your canvas
- all - on - your - own.
Of your own volition - you pressed those bristles so hard they fanned out, the handle of the brush teased the canvas and with a slow -
determined -
press... you created the smallest of holes.
Time passed, and you decided you liked those holes - you experimented with that pain, dragging the brush handle through the holes - enlarging the rips and tears.
I rushed to try to sew the exposure up with words of silk, with words of wool, with words of anything that might work
and you pushed my hands away - refusing the repairs.
In the dark, when you were so inebriated with black paint seeping through the woven bits of canvas - I quietly snuck a small piece of the golden fabric, untouched by the darkness, and slipped it into my pocket.
I needed it -
to save it -
the only good of you I had left.
As I backed away from the picture of you - I barely recognized it. I could no longer remember what it looked like...
before.
I tried to imagine that beautiful, glimmering shade that once fluttered around the canvas, like a monarch - free and fleeting.
I couldn't.
With tears in my eyes, I pulled the last golden thread from my pocket, smiled once — then turned away from the monster you’d become.
