Genene Carter, Ever

This time of the night tastes like pink. If I close my eyes and breathe it in, I’m back. Back to when all I knew of the world was surrounded by pink walls. You painted them yourself in your favorite color because colors tell stories.

So once upon a time, pink was safe and comfortable like whispered bedtime stories, full of princesses and magic lamps and seashells with songs trapped inside.

But it turns out pink was just pretend, because the doctor’s office is white, and the gown they make you wear is not like Sleeping Beauty’s.

Out of the blue, pink is a fight, armed with matching t-shirts and baseball caps, spelled “race for the cure,” and measured in bracelets and ribbons and dollar bills.

Then finally, finally, pink tastes like victory, like the strawberry popsicles we made ourselves on that rose-gold summer night when we celebrated the beautiful words cancer-free.

But somehow anything beautiful and perfect melts fast, and the magic wand that’s supposed to fix everything doesn’t always work.

Pink had become a promise, one I didn’t realize I’d been holding on to so tight. It was a glass slipper, shattered with words I don’t understand, like recurrence and metastatic and prognosis because pink was a war we lost in the end.

I try to remember that change can be beautiful. It turns inchworms into butterflies and paints green trees gold. And autumn leaves are so pretty, even as they fall to the ground. But there’s nothing beautiful about watching you die.

There’s nothing pretty about staring at the view from your hospital window, when the sun is slipping and so are you.

But you’re smiling with your eyes and telling me it’s not the end, that you’re always here. I hold your hand and try to believe you while I let the tears fall silently over your gown until your breathing slows and Sleeping Beauty closes her eyes.

All I can taste is salt, cold ocean spray from a breeze too sharp to feel good. And it seems that wherever you went, you took all the color in the world with you because everywhere feels gray and cold without you.

Everywhere except here, a place I couldn’t bring myself to go at first, until I noticed the soft rosy light, how it makes everything glow this time of night. So now I come all the time to talk to you about everything, just like I used to. And sometimes, I bring the books from my old room and read you whatever feels right. At first, I feel silly talking to a stone so I look up at the sky instead.

And I find a new ending written there. It tells me the earth couldn’t hold you. And now, you’re somewhere I can’t follow. Up high in the sky, where you belong. Singing with the angels, dancing on pink clouds, on and on, forever and ever.