Color • Wake

Love is

Not the loud red of arrival

Not the blue that once named the animal

But something more patient

A hue that does not ask to be witnessed

It gathers in the soft underside of things

In the pulse behind my wrist

In the dim gold of late afternoon

Resting on skin that has known both fire and its absence

I am no longer painted

I am permeated

A slow diffusion

Like pigment released into water

Not dissolving

But becoming indistinguishable from it

There are colors now that do not belong to sight

The warmth that lingers after touch

The quiet violet of being understood

The pale, infinite white of a moment that asks for nothing

And still

Somewhere beneath it all

A deeper tone remains

Unnameable, steady as breath beneath sleep

It does not bloom

It does not fade

It moves, slow and certain

Through every hidden place in me

Until I am no longer carrying color

I am the place it comes alive