The Color Between Happiness and Desire

I am a scorching ember clinging to life in a sea of black,

refusing to be stomped out,

to be put out by the garish hand of those who wish to hold me down.

I am the sunset as the last blinding rays of light

pierce through the veil of night,

and dispel the shadows for a moment longer.

I am an apricot, whose soft orange and tan rind

hides a sweet center,

but an even harder pit.

I am the autumn glory,

my leaves drifting through the air

and dancing with the promise of the coming cold,

but also the rebirth that follows.

I am a golden toad,

a splotch of orange amidst the green

and envious vines that threaten to drag you under;

a hidden beam of warmth surrounded by the oppressive cold.

I am a tiger lily,

a delicate array of individual parts

hiding behind the façade of ferocity

curled up upon itself,

like a shy woman sitting alone on the bus.

I am a thousand different shades, hues, tones, and intensities.

I am the color trapped between yellowed happiness and reddened desire,

a product of both, but belonging to neither;

energetic, uncontrollable, immutable.

I blaze with the light of a thousand flames,

soaring skyward to join with their ancestors in the sky;

both consuming and consumed, all the while

humbling itself to the wind and the searing rain.

I am all that Mother Nature has made me

And yet still I blaze, like an ember

that defies the world, struggling against all odds;

for it knows that a single spark

is enough to dispel the darkness for a moment longer.