Spectrum

It can get freezing cold and scalding hot. Warm like summer days and breezy on spring nights.

I’ve been blessed to see the brightest point of the day and the darkest of the nights. There have also been cloudy mornings and orange tinted evenings.

I was raised in a house with morning prayers, he was raised in a house with crystals and chants. His father reaches the surface of the ceilings, my mother is closer to the ground than loamy soil.

His hair is gold mixed with brown, my hair is black and heavy with history.

So from the way the world turns and the way the moon replaces the sun, from the way the season changes, and the way the rain waters the crops, I’ve learnt that the probability of my existence at the beginning, middle or end can only be high.

So when you ask me why my nose is so wonky, I ask why yours is so straight.

When you wonder why I am a cocoa shade of brown, I ask why you are a beige shade of white.

Why do I like my coffee with so much sweetener? I ask why you like your coffee dark without sugar.

Why do I love that boy in khaki, the one that sits alone at the corner? I ask why you like the girl in the blue summer dress, the life of the party.

You ask why I like the colours associated with doom, I ask why you see a world so grey with colours so bright.

Why do I pray to a faceless being above? I ask why you can’t see past the things that you can touch.

Why do I like to wear structured garments? I ask why you don’t see the beauty in form.

Why do I want to be a girl? I ask why you are a boy.

You see, I was raised at a point on a spectrum. You were born into a point on another spectrum.

A spectrum of colour. A spectrum of political views. A spectrum of personalities. A spectrum of sexuality. A spectrum of height. A spectrum of weight. A spectrum of beliefs.

A spectrum of identities.

There are too many variables so we can never be alike. And just like seasons, there are many reasons why we are apart.

So is it too much that I ask for some respect for our individual differences? Some of which we both haven’t even chosen, some of which we might not even understand.

As we exist at a point on many spectrums, where we have found ourselves.