Colorbook

For many weeks after your trip to Boston,
You would wear to work, I remember,
A crimson top, a black jacket,
and fitted gray pants.

You knew how badly I wanted
to matriculate into the school,
the colors of your attire represented.

Rehearsed almost, in its potential reminders,
My mind would flee,
in the middle of our meetings,
to a land of possibility.

Optimism would soar above my pestilent brain,
rising into a virtual collage
of announcements, handshakes, a graduation
in historic grounds with souls
of revolutionaries breaking into applause.

My mind, a prized awardee of trophies
at second-guessing and self-doubt,
would crystallize into a pin-hole receptacle,
into which positivity and bottled beliefs
would slide in, like slanted rays of undivided light.

I didn't get in, as you know.
I told you this in an email,
my body quaking, my lips turning gray,
my heart shredding into bits of careless juliennes.

But for many months after
I remembered your attire;
An emollient, almost, to my grieving self.
 
Red cotton flowers crawling over your breasts,
Hint of a smile splashed on your lips,
And your eyes, sitting patiently
Behind your wide-rimmed glasses,
Telling me, lovingly,
Don't stop believing.