poetry

Color Collecting. {poetry}

 

I.

Hedda used to sit on the front steps,
her knobby knees cradling a bowl.
Her favorite bowl:
Her moonglobe bowl.

She’d rest the thing in her cushioned lap
as the sun was setting —
as it kissed its way
down the perfect slope of the Earth —
and she’d whisper to us,
Her eyes sealed in slits of reverie,

“I’m color collecting.”

She said by the end of it,
by the time
The sun went to sleep,
She’d have a full bowl of color,
riper and sweeter
and as saturated
as any prize-winning peach.

Well,
we’d catch fireflies then —
Instead of listening to her stories.

We’d let the treefrogs
chirp us
into a familiar drunken rhythm
and make ourselves fearless
against the ephemeral dark.

And we’d tell ourselves
that what we were doing
was terribly important;
That these were the friends
we’d never forget.
That this
was that summer.
That mystic and mythic summer.

 

II.

Hedda always knew she could catch me.
I had the eyes
that couldn’t help but notice.
Could never turn a query down.
Especially hers.

My friends,
my brothers and sisters
would drip
or boldly skip
down the stairs past her,
as if she were some ever-present pewter statue
that wouldn’t ever use its voice anyway.

But Hedda always caught me.
And stopped me.
Right at the third step.

One time she told me,
“There are things
people can only give life to
in the dark —
where maybe not even the moon can reach.”

She was holding
her color-catching bowl
and the sun rays
were hitting it in such a way
that she became illuminated
as she told me.

There was violet
dotting her brow.
And nectarine
coloring her hair.
And gold.
There was gold!
And she was magnificent.
And she was on fire.
And she knew it.

We stared at one another
for a minute.
Two dogs
sniffing one another out.

 

III.

She flicked her fingers at me
and I was off.
Set free to be a child again.
Cartwheeling and pinwheeling
Around no one else
Other than myself.

Hedda always knew I understood.

She was color collecting.

***

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Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors

Brittany Connors is an actress, writer, and general life enthusiast based out of NYC. She is a lover of story, text, and all of the various expressions we find to make sense of ourselves and the world around us. She believes all expression is a celebration of this breathtaking existence.
Brittany Connors