Gray
Since the day you're born
you wear rose colored glasses.
Everything is bright and colorful.
There are the simplistic joys:
Santa Clause,
the Easter Bunny,
the Tooth Fairy.
And there are the sugar-coated lies:
"There's nothing wrong with tia,
she's just feeling sick."
"Mija, your uncle died in a car accident."
But auntie wasn't sick,
she was dancing in green fields that night.
And tio was in no car crash,
he was hit in the head with a shovel
during a gang fight.
Some of us start to realize
things aren't what they seem
early on.
The color in our lenses
start to fade,
and we can see everything
as they always were.
Others are suddenly blinded
by broken shards,
our spectacles smashed by sudden reality.
Black and white.
Like the newspaper I found
years later,
of my uncle's death.
Sharp and silent,
like the smell of my aunt
years after that,
a familiar stench
that I finally understood.
Now there's not even
black and white
anymore.
Just. . .gray.
All gray.
And I understand.
So don't lie to me anymore.
Tell me things like they are.
Or maybe, just maybe, you lie
because you know
that I understand now.
I threw away
my colored contacts
long ago.
So take off yours
and understand
that we understand
and we see in
gray.
