Writing from colour

I see him in rainbows.
I see him in clouds.
I see him in big skies and bright stars.
I see him in shafts of light and pouring rain.
He is elemental now.
He always was elemental.

Red. For the blood. That is all.

Yellow like the daffodils in the poem I wrote on our last weekend away together. The hopefulness in that poem is like a smack in the face now. It feels like some malevolent force was listening to all my talk of spring and newness and rebirth and decided to come with a cleaver and chop down all the daffodils and take you with them. Not for me, the optimism of yellow. The hope of spring.

Pink, like the fleece I wore in the photos you took. The one where I am all woodland sprite on an autumn walk, climbing down from a tree with that beaming smile that only you seemed to captu
re, that only you gave rise to. We went looking for a highwayman's cave. Never found it but didn't care. Instead we found a patch of grass on a hillside and called it home. We lay down and watched the sun slowly slip out of the sky. I shuffled backwards and felt your arms around me. A priceless moment, bathed in the pink light of dusk, perched on the edge of love.

There was so much green. Green fields around your house on the day we first sat together on your porch. Green grass in the park as we walked the dog. Green trees on woodland walks. Even though we mostly loved in winter, we lived in green on those magical days. Now I am green. Sick with horror and green with envy for the people who loved you for longer than I did and the people who hold their loved ones close at night. Green is sprouting out all over now, like a reminder of a love that was just beginning to truly blossom. A love that will never ever see the summer.

Purple for the heather on that first September walk we took together. The joy of boundless discovery, rampaging across the moors, conversation never faltering, being completely present and yet aware that there was just the faintest purple tinge of forever in the air. There has never been a more perfect day. I'm so glad I spent with you. I'm so sad that we will never do it again.

Orange for a man of fire. The flames of the bonfire you built for me on New Year's Eve. You carried the wood and an axe up the hill, breathed life into sticks just as you breathed life in to me. Sat between your legs, feeling my shins burning, watching fireworks exploding over the city that was home to both of us for our whole lives, lives which were spent at less than half a degree of separation until last year. Flames of passion burning bright. Snuffed out, without warning, overnight.

It was always going to be blue. The colour for you. The blue of your eyes meeting mine in disbelief. Your eyes look sad, you said, the first time that we kissed. I said I was terrified, of risking my heart again. That malevolent force was watching then too, urging me on, telling me to take a chance. What could go wrong? Everything as it happens. Blue for the shirt you wore every time we went out. I know you still think it was black, but I'm telling you it was dark blue. I bought you a new one at Christmas, light blue this time. It goes with your eyes, your mum said. The blue of the sea at Flamborough and the blue of the skies. I see you in skies now. And in clouds. Love for us was fleeting and rare as the rainbows you leave as messages now you're gone. You are elemental now. You always were elemental.