Orange and Grey.

Things that make you question life as you know it

i.
Your grandmother with a tube down her nose
in which you pour milk and water and medication
down to her stomach
Her mouth dry and talking in a language you scarcely understand
telling you she wantd water but you saying you can’t give it to her
or her husband, because it’s three in the morning and this is your duty
And she asks why, why don’t you listen to her, “granddaughter,” she says

ii.
The feeling that you are possibly worthless
and you have to call your mother because you’re about to cry
And your grandmother tells her daughter-in-law you’ve been treating her like she’s an idiot
and stories that didn’t happen because she is unwell and unhappy
and so very upset with you

iii.
You listen to the rain outside and you try to remember all the other things it reminds you of
but all you are left with this feeling
This big big big feeling that encompasses everything that it must
it must encompass the world

iv.
How old am I anyway?
They treat as though I am almost forty
and sometimes merely ten
but I feel a thousand and a thousand
like the depth of her skin
and the length of all the hair I have cut off my head

v.
I don’t want these shoes they have tailored for me
and I don’t want this paint I have mixed in these shoes
I am coloured orange and grey, orange and grey
like an impossible sunset
I think I am nearing
an end

vi.
Orange and grey, like their ugly words
when it bleeds to fade me
Orange and grey, like my hair if it matched my start
and my skin if it matched my ventures
into a place with names and names that make no sense
Orange and grey, like I used to be yellow and blue, happy and sad
now I am burned and bleak
Now I am passion and losing