If the Rainbow Exploded

Words have colors.  Names have colors too.  Cousin Jimmy’s is green like pear skin.  Neighbor Patty’s is red like cold, tomato juice.  Friend Norma’s is pale, yellow like pineapple flesh.

Right now I’m standing on the highest balcony of the tallest building in the city with Renee.  Hers is sienna.  Sienna like a brick.

She says, “Close your eyes, destroy the world,” as we sit with our bombs at the top of the skyscraper.

At first when she suggested this, dropping a bomb off our office building, I called her insane.

Then, I called her sensitive.  The word ‘sensitive’ is a nicer color.

Truth, dare, double-dare, promise or repeat until the day I die, because we never make it out alive.

So I ended up saying yes, and now we’re here.

“Did she love you?”

I ignore her.

“Because the worst way someone can hurt you is by loving you,” Renee finishes.  She’s right, you know.

Love is the color of burnt orange and flaming scarlet: a flame’s leftover singe mark.

We look over the city, watching everyone, and they don’t even know.  I feel like a hero, about to save them.  They are blue.  Blue like the stilled bathwater after Grandma gets out of the tub.

“Ready?” Renee asks, about to set off her bomb.  I only nod my head, because no words can paint the color of this picture right now.

As the bomb ticks, I think about how your name is the color of a violent violet and if they ever turn it into a crayon, I will start a war.

Five.

Four.

Three..

Two…

________

Shannon Waite doesn’t believe in socks or purses and parks in the back of parking lots. She’s a little different, just like the things she writes about.  She has nearly 150 kids, but she doesn’t take them home (she teaches high school English and Creative Writing in Detroit, Michigan). Her writing has been featured in Oakland University’s Swallow the Moon and anthologies from Grey Wolfe Publishing. Talk to her; she loves words and conversations.