Who am I?

I’m the heart of a mother scorned, manifested into everything this world loves but mistreats.

I survive,

knowing what this world can do to a human if not taken care of.

So I sacrifice my innocence for you to love me.

I’m a child.

Grew up different,

more upset with the butterflies that wouldn’t let me free,

still a caterpillar in a world full of cocoons I birthed.

Color is the teacher of limits,

look up at the sky to understand it doesn’t hurt to write about the blues.

Imagination can break barriers, “Gold minds will only go so far without an inner matrix,” only color can be.

I plant mustard seeds and paint gardens of the trees I was taken from.

Born in the darkness, but everything comes to light eventually,

I’am the personification that sees the light in innocent beings and tortured people,

Even after they've burned me to the cross.

I stand on the shoulders of blank pages and blue lines.

Scribbling truth on paper filling up spaces not completely mapped out for me,

praying they’ll see my imagination through their reality, even when they tell you to stay inside the lines.

“the eyes can only see as far as the brain can think,” spirits love how I can relate to their imagination.

Innocence is the future, like spirituality, like children,

like since I was little they would tell a white lie.

I could be whatever I wanted, until they saw the color, then told me it’s not real.

Spirit warned me to return a turtle, because they are patient and wise,

though the folks who need color the most are nothing like those guys.

So I’ll keep creating for our children painting pictures of the world,

for the future is our colorful youth,

using pride to see more than life.

-leila nachel.