An Empath's Colour

I have always been a canvas.

A colour made from a shade that in spite my might to turn it any other shade than white,

It remains a candid canvas for other people’s pain.

Feelings. Emotions. Perception.

Deception.

-

People don’t know,

They don’t stow their thoughts in slots that I can’t find.

They don’t care to spare me their moods and attitude,

Because they don’t know that any emotional aftermath will be felt by an empath.

-

I don’t choose.

I don’t know whose mood will intrude my day

And imbued my faculty with colours and thoughts that don’t belong to me.

And I can’t be freed.

No matter how much I’ve tried to untie myself,

Cut through the doubt,

I just can’t shut them out.

-

Now my canvas is stained.

A hue of blue from a feud of two.

A burgundy, so angry it clashes a debris of glee from splattered green.

Someone’s mellow yellow seeping through another’s wounded maroon.

Grey feel’s betrayed, depressed yet blessed.

A golden glare of despair.

A bed of red from what someone had said.

They’re mad, they’re sad, offensive, no, defensive.

A brown, a bronze, a beige an orange.

Wait, I think, yes, that’s pink.

-

The colours sit there suffused, bearing down, daring me to choose.

But I can’t choose.

-

A crowded space has no restraint and that is where it spills the paint.

Then one on one, you’d think is fine, but read between the lines.

No one is truly fine.

I don’t wish to offend my friend,

But I can read them like an open book, start to end.

I don’t always want to look.

I will the book to close before I know what can’t be unknown.

-

And I’m always an imposter.

Always knowing, always seeing,

Never agreeing to being an exposed mic on a windy peak.

-

But I don’t want to play today.

I don’t want to hear, or feel, or see,

I want to be alone.

Stick my headphones on.

There’s no sound, but I like it that way.

Keeps the emotions at bay.

-

For you see,

This is why,

No matter how much I try to hide the truth,

I am made from the shade that will always be white.

For white is a colour that takes on other colours.

-

That is the colour of an Empath.

...

You may pick up your brushes.