There’s a peculiar amount of freedom
that comes with losing everything.

The colors of my life dance around me
as they are stripped away.

Rosy reds of my blood that once washed my cheeks
reminding me that I could feel.

Soft purples of being held.

They gather on my skin and detach from it,
breaking away like the flaky layers of the
dreams it took to make them so.

And I, still enamored by the yellows of my past—
clenching to its innocence, soon learn
to let even those go.

I bid the greens goodbye as they whirl
around my ankles, tickling my toes for the
last time—plucking my raveled roots.

Every shade, shape, and texture
that fashioned this life.

The cranks and shifts of gears.
The buzzing and bustling of bark and stone.
The weary whistling of desire and fear.

I watch as it all falls in front of me.
Rising up and diving from the sky as a hawk
would in pursuit of its prey.

And in the ghastly gore of mash and matter
I sit still enough to see it perish.

In every life this moment awaits.
The refined sentence to see yourself die.

All your colors, your glory, your refuge
gutted and burned.

So that you may start again.

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C. S. Rousseau is a writer and visual artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana.