Not So Pretty Pink

Pink. A little girl first sees the world from this rose coloured tint.

Pink dolls. Pink clothes. Pink room. Pink girl. There is no room for boyish ways in a pink coloured world. Pretty pink must be perfect.

It is not until the first scraped knee, cut ankle, skinned palm that you learn. You are not just pink. You are red too.

Red. Running through gardens, rolling in grass and sunshine, carefree and wild. No care for clothes or appearance. This is the red child.

With red comes the hatred of pink. The desire to leave behind the little girl, to place the porcelain doll back on her shelf. She is not you. She is gone and with her, pink.

When red fades, there is blue. Calm days. Days of growing, knowing what to choose. You have words to say you realise, painting page after page with blue.

Blue words that leave their mark, stories from your head that spill out like waves crashing against the the shore. Unstoppable. Unbreakable. Beautiful. Blue.

In the refraction of light, a rainbow exists. Like a diamond in sunlight you have grown. You are every colour, branching and growing and glowing.

Beyond the blue of your stories, your creations. Beyond the red of childhood, the determination to be one of the boys. You will dust off that doll on the shelf.

You see her pink cheeks. Her pink dress. You think of her pink innocence and her pink love. Although you have sworn the end of not so pretty pink, you remember that all pink roses bloom, as have you.