remember me for who i was not who i am

or who i am, not who i was (if i was awful to you)

hey did you know a lot of mammals can’t see the color orange? to them, tigers are practically invisible.

and did you know that crows, panthers, black snakes, most melanistic animals if i remember correctly, to our eyes they look just black. sometimes, when the light is right, they seem to have a bit of an oily sheen to them. what’s happening there, if you don’t already know, is that the colors they really are, those colors beyond the spectrum of light our human eyes perceive, are just bordering on the edge of the spectrum visible to us.

they are colors we can’t imagine, let alone see.

to other organisms who can perceive these colors, these animals are WILD explosions of color. walking, flying, stalking, slithering ultra-rainbows.

every time i’m reminded of this fact i remember something a girl i was once speaking to told me. she was a fashion major and worked at a major clothing brand.

she said “i really believe people dress how they feel”

i was immediately self conscious of my closet full of identical black tshirts, sweatpants, socks, and underwear. 2 black hoodies, 2 black baseball caps.

nowadays thats still most of it but, there are now 3 black turtlenecks, 2 black dresses, some black dress shirts, a long black cardigan/cape, black dress pants, black chefs pants, etc etc.

it’s more complex, there are different silhouettes, materials, etc.

often when i dress, i think about what she said, and wonder what i must feel like to dress like this.

it started in middle school, i didn’t have the mental capacity to wake up and worry about whether or not my clothes matched together.

before that, i was always wearing the vibrant polos and dress shirts my father handed down to me.

things started to nosedive, i ended up in psych wards and halfway homes, i was trying to drink chocolate shakes made with liquid plumber and swallowing entire bottles of whatever pills i could get my hands on, i didn’t have have the mental capacity to wake up earlier to iron my clothes so i could avoid the comments my parents were bound to make when i left with a creased and ruffled shirt. i was staying up as late as possible each night because i was afraid of the nightmares i was bound to have.

i wonder if crows looked at me and also saw an explosion of colors, i wonder if any person ever did.

i wonder if they could tell how i was feeling when they looked at how i was dressed.

oh i know one person who could maybe

rainbow reflection

that’s why a lot of hunting gear is orange by the way

invisible tiger

i am Ophelia singing

it’s been long enough to talk about it

no, goodnight sinclair.