Navya Saini

the world in Color

Navya Saini

A dress that is goldenrod.

Asphalt like the playground.

The sea’s cerulean all around me.

And saffron is a cultural nod.

I’ve always known many names for ROYGBIV.

Searching through the Crayola 24-pack for colors that fit

I took to mixing my own.

clashing rushing blending blurring

colors cultures worlds colliding

When stars collide they don’t stay the same but new elements are made.

Each time I put myself

together again

I find a whole new shade.

Oh, what a pretty metaphor, the colors of a life.

Abstract, perhaps, to you, colors are the world to me.

in every sound, each emotion, the slightest fleeting touch

All the colors that come to be!

no, not red for anger and such

on the contrary;

an abstract art installation as i flip through my math books

a yawning abyss the color of honey in the languid empty quiet of summer break

food that tastes like the colors of a rose

blackcurrant boxes filled with memories

things that i don’t want to think about in overwhelming ominous foreboding

icky

green

embarrassing moments in a rush of yellow

replayed for my mind’s eye

confusion is grey,

greyer than thunderclouds in July,

numbing when i try to balance worlds and how much to give

to each

a woollen mass of magenta frustration,

at the traitorous pricks of tears when things don’t happen or go right

and i’m so scattered i’m not sure which way i was headed

pretty pale pink clouds of laughter floating when i’m happy,

the olive-and-amaranth of joy and hope

love and sparkling bliss, like words and numbers on a page:

a thousand cascading rainbows

Each memory, each learning, aglow in a hue.

Some are familiar, like it or not.

Other experiences are new.

As a potter shapes clay

and an author shapes a plot

my world’s full of colors (though they do clash a lot).

pulling pushing mixing swirling

new ones coming to be

ever-changing,

this palette’s name is constant:

me