Eventually, inadvertently, you begin to surround yourself with so many different people that it becomes impossible to conform at all anymore.

So many colors spin around you, dance through the skies like Northern Lights,
That soon it's not fathomable to keep them from splashing you, the blues from becoming ocean water that washes off the shades of grey you've painted over yourself.

And when you find you can't be what everyone wants you to be all at once, you're left swimming in a sea of confusion where you can find only yourself.

On the inside, we are each of us outcasts, think fast,
We’re actually on the outside together.
Made up of vividly radiant colors that range throughout the spectrum,
When we allow ourselves to live fearlessly,
Our colors speak thousands louder than pallid, muted tones,
Those of the many who cover bright colors with varied shades of black and white.

By pushing you away, you push the world away.
We are each made up of not only our own colors, but the colors of those we surround ourselves with.
Their touch inks chromatic hues of purple, green and red into our own skin, and we find that those who we love become a part of us.

Understand now, before it's too late, that I see the patterns of my own colors on you, every memory its own unique hue.
The angry thoughts are colored in jagged shades of fire, flickering oranges, harsh streaks of white hot rage on rare occasion.

They are not so prominent as the good memories, these being kaleidoscopic works of art that sparkle and shimmer with cerulean blues, periwinkles, colors of the sea.
Luminous lemon yellows, sunset orange, and purples rich as the wine of Greek deities -

I see them all when I see you.

To glimpse beyond the silvery veil you've painted over your eyes is a blessing,
Remembering that these are the eyes that I've seen be brighter than the stars,
Constellations in the velvet skies of midnight, blinding sunshine itself in the climax of day.

Pause.

Close your eyes.
Slide the filter over the face of Picasso, place Van Gogh's paintbrush in an iron cage.
Bright colors are a terrifying thing, because what would happen if they were to spill onto society's pristine floors?

You've seen the stains that others have left, and the lifetimes spent failing to scrub them off the shattered ground,
Watched them be painted over with lies and force-fed beliefs about what is beautiful.

You've seen them bleed to the point where you vowed never to be the one on her knees.

So put yourself in a box, take every precautionary measure in the book, and wonder, keep wondering, why you're still unhappy.

Consider for a moment, what it might be like, the sweetly scented soap in the palm of your hand,
And you sit in the bathtub and scrub until your skin is raw,
The stinging of your eyes drowning out the pain,
Watching flecks of sadness and loneliness crumble to the ground like dead leaves,
Shedding layers of self-hate and insecurity as though they were a second skin you only just now realized you never even needed.

I know that it seems like the scariest thing you could do, but only when you begin to paint with your own colors will the world recognize their beauty.

Imagine the world painting with your colors; imagine an earth enlivened with everyone's colors, blending in ways no one ever knew they could, forming spectacular new hues, beyond greens, blues; shades of which no one has ever dared to dream.

How could anyone ever imagine painting over that image?