Rainbow

some have their earrings, or fancy cars, or fishnet stockings, or tiny scars

to set them apart

I have my glasses

I can read just fine, up close and far away

they’re colored plastic sunglasses and they really do change the way you see the world

I’ve got yellow cat-eye ones for weddings,

thick sky-blue round ones for birthdays,

red-orange square ones for trips to the mall,

and rosy rectangle ones for me and Matt

we’ve been dating for five months now and

every day I pick out a pair of my glasses and

he puts on a collared shirt to match

every day

the day after my mother died

he told me to get over it and

that we saw it coming (we did) and

after that I cried streams into oceans

every day

I stopped wearing my glasses

and he stopped wearing colored shirts

every day

he wore a plain pressed white collared shirt

every day

after my mother’s funeral

two weeks after her funeral

I asked where all his shirts had gone,

because there were thirty shirts in his closet

but they were all white

he cupped my face in his cold hands and

asked me if I’d gone crazy and

told me that he only ever wore white,

to set him apart

I blinked once slow and once quicker,

to sweep away the confusion, but then

I connected the truth in his freckles

I told him that I’d never realized and

to get out of my house and

that I’d fallen in love with a rainbow

not seeing that the colors I craved were me

all along