I was born blue.

Suffocation within the womb.

Blue, like the Smurfs that played across the television set.

The hue that dyes your mouth, every time you suck on a blueberry lollipop.

The phthalo blue that Bob Ross crisscrossed in strokes to form that happy little sky.

The type of blue people revolve their personalities around.

When I was blue, I was dying.

 

Not even 5 seconds into this world and I had already decided to check out.

5 seconds.

Every 60 seconds, someone is murdered.

Every 39 seconds, someone commits suicide.

Every 27 seconds, someone dies in a car crash.

Every 3 seconds, someone starves to death.

Every second, I die.

 

Should I fear the color blue?

Should I check in the mirror every morning to see if I have asphyxiated in my sleep?

Gasp for air as my lungs ooze salty bile.

My eyes turn white.

No, I do not do this.

Because I know where the blue lies.

It does not prick my skin anymore.

 

There is no nurse who will pitifully strap a breathing machine to my face as I’m surrounded by

hundreds of healthy babies who are not begging for a release

from the humiliation of a disgustingly drunk man who cannot even spell my name right.

Let alone see that I’m dying.

Those who go out and lead lives full of passion, love, beauty, fear, and sadness while I am stuck

to the gurney of my mother’s chest

 

What is it like to be the baby who was born with a name, a face, a good head on her shoulders

She wears her morals proudly

instead of opening them up to the world like the trashy whore she is. 

When will she be like her father wants?

put on her blue stockings and swipe around her little blue handkerchief to pick up all the

black dust and grime that has set in the corners of his house? 

Or how will she learn to apply that icy blue lipstick in such a way that her mother will not call her a slut

but the boy next door will take that blue for just a moment of reprieve

only to force it down her throat the next? 

I pity those who do not reside within the blue, for they do not know how to live with it.

 

The blue that echoes on the wall through a broken window.

The blue that forms on the hand after it slams into the counter.

while your father yells at your mother for his own bruised skin.

The blue that runs from your eyes

while you lie stiffly awake to protect

your brother and mother from the guns downstairs.

The blue that twists around your neck

while the pillow sinks further and further into your nose.

The blue of the parasite that’s in your mind.

The blue that silences your voice.

The blue I have lived with, ever since I was born.