50 Shades of not just Grey    
By: Vivian Ngo

There’s only 6 colors
on the spectrum.
Red, Orange, Yellow,
Green, Blue, and Purple.
That’s how I was taught.

It’s scary to think how they
slim down life into 6 simple words.
But it’s even scarier to think that they
teach us to see color, but it’s
something humans all embody.
It’s stained glass cloaked
and drenched in our souls.
           
The first time I cried, my mom
asked me why I looked so blue, but
I didn’t look blue, because the tears
that ran down my skin were clear, but the
cosmic eruption inside of my soul was
midnight cobalt, burnt in pale sapphire,
drenched in divinity of marine. I didn’t
understand why they said I was blue
because I was far from it.
           
But then the first time I fell in love,
I saw someone so burnt in scarlet,
breathing soft lavender, blushing in
crimson. I didn’t want to be blue anymore,
so I looked deeply into that scarlet letter,
but I didn’t turn red, and neither did I stay
blue, because I became grey.
Devastatingly off the spectrum
of color,

non
existent.

Grey.

I didn’t understand why I
felt worse
than blue,
the scarlett was so pure
in ecstasy, it wasn’t
fair, we were so wrong for
one another, we
were so different, but so right,
but I was murdered into

feeling grey.
           
So I walked around grey, but
I pretended to be flaxen cadmium
because nobody wants to be with stained
grey. But one day I ran into somebody,
who looked like me. Just grey, but she wasn’t
exactly, because she loved the shade she
was. Dark ebony ash, exhuberated in cadmium.
It was addictingly gracious to see someone who
was made grey, turn themselves into
something that was far more beautiful
than any color on the spectrum. So I talked
to her, I laughed, smiled, and I realized I
loved being dark ebony ash.
           
Then, something so wrong walked
into my life. Pure rose, breathing in scarlet,
exhaling gold. I knew I couldn’t be with that
color, because I feared staining their soul
with ash. But we were inevitably
incarcerated. So they took their
tanned skin, broke my fingers like a
wave, and crashed their hands against
mine, and we became every shade of
maroon, speaking in lavender, emitting
cobalt, exhaling gold, whispering champagne
cotton.

And now I understand.
Why they
told me there are
only 6 colors to the universe.
           
Because they can’t explain
why we feel.
They can’t explain
why they think white is above all.
They’ll just say blacks are separate
but equally on the spectrum. They say
blues will be blues, because if pink wore
that dress she asked for it. And god knows
if blue were to marry blue, sin.
Yellow and Brown how dare you
have a child. Pink just kissed Pink.
Send them to hell.

We weren’t born one color, but every
color, and not one of those 6 spectrums,
but the million that exist.

Because they won’t tell us,
we’re 50 shades of the same human
being and that took me 18 years,
10 months and 7 days to learn
-Thank you