Last night I painted my lips blue.
I raced through yesterday’s scroll, when I gave a shoulder or two for her to rest, just listen or perhaps offer to dry, her melted tears.
I dabbed my lids with burning sapphire from the edges of the horizon, shy of just a few more drops, before it turned ebony.
I remembered the tidbit of counsel I gave my friend, the pat on his back that made him beam, the driblet of sparkle in his worn out eyes that seemed to double my deep found joy.
The sky then hushed in lullabies of violet as wind chimes clamored streaks of jade. I dipped my brush in the obsidian ink that ate the sky, then mixed the rouge in my smoldering palette that still burned in embers from the inferno within.
Yes, I remember my fingers, tired from keying character notes all day long, that spread the blackest ultramarine on my rounded cheeks, when slivers of ice tinged cobalt flowed through the window and glossed my skin.
I looked closely at the mirror when I saw…
A blue butterfly that was pinned to the wall, with aching vitriol that stung her skin as she struggled in silence to let be free.
I pondered over the heaviness that crushed my marrow to chunks, wondering why, when the moon sighed for want of stars.
My blue butterfly trembled as it spoke to me in mumbled breath,
For last night I had forgotten to cry for myself.
-Rupa J
