Blue

When a color turns into an emotion.

I am standing and I am feeling blue,

Not the light jewel tone blues of Hawaii’s harbors,

Not the joyful icy blue of my dad’s eyes,

Not the happy, pretty, shiny blues,

I am standing and I am feeling blue,

The watery blue of my tears after putting my dog down,

The deep blossoming blue of a bruise that sits on skin,

The sad, ugly, dull blues,

I am standing and I am feeling blue,

But all you can see is light skin,

Covered in light hair and brassy freckles,

Not a blue girl,

And I have been trying to hide it,

And the effort leaves me exhausted,

But I’m afraid to rub my droopy eyelids,

What if my palms rub my skin away?

I’m afraid that the blue would show then,

That my hands would spread the color across my eyes and nose,

Like the mask of a depressing superhero,

I’m afraid that my fingertips will smear the color into my eyebrows and onto my lips,

Like the war paint of a warrior who just wants to lay down and cry,

I can feel the color churning under my skin,

My brain is drowning in it and the color is seeping into the roots of my hair,

There is blue trapped under my nails and it is tinting my cuticles,

My bone marrow dyed blue

My bones are painted blue

My muscles are soaked in blue

My blood runs blue,

I am still standing but I no longer feel blue.

Reviews

[emipoemi]

O-M-G! This is a powerful piece! Really takes a mundane colour and a rather mundane expressive emotion and takes it to a whole new level! Vivid, profound, thought-provoking! Every line really packs the best punch! If you don't mind my doing so, I'd like to suggest a couple of tweaks to amp up the power (take them as you may, I'm not forcing them on you):

-"My bones are painted blue"....without "painted" it echoes the other three lines, and is therefore stronger and more powerful. And because it's the second of the four "being" blue lines, the repetition of the verb is acceptable (it's also not exactly a direct repetition, since you use "is" before, and this is "are")

-"I'm stilling standing, but am no longer blue" ....first off, typo on "stilling" (I think you're wanting to say "still"), and second, it feels a little confusing and anticlimactic to say this line, and then say "now I am just blue". After an entire poem of explaining blue as a colour of depression and then "painting" yourself blue, to say "but am no longer blue" and then "now I am just blue" is a little bit of a throw-off. For we as readers are smart, and internally know how poetry works, and so after the change in meaning, change the echo:

"I am still standing....but now I'm just blue". Like so, after our experience through the poem, we understand what you mean without you having to spell it out in a rather confusing fashion. Sometimes it's far more powerful to leave things open for interpretation.

This is otherwise absolutely fantastic! Well done!

[ellen]

Thank you so much! Especially for catching my spelling errors. Seriously I love all of your suggesting and probably will be making some changes soon.

[emipoemi]

you're very welcome. it was my pleasure.

[sette]

i like the poem with colors representing about different emotions so this is actually a good piece of writing.

[The Iron Horseman]

This is vivid! A very bright, pleasing blue, in fact. It conjures the mood perfectly and leaves the reader in no doubt about the subject's increasingly depressive state. I am not usually a fan of blank verse, but I like this a great deal. Well done.

[ellen]

Thank you so much!

[The Iron Horseman]

You are very welcome. Keep up the good work!