when we went to the beach he described the ocean as sea-green. 

from my cylindrical perch the ocean is spun, like my grandmother’s dewy, windswept hair, artificial black and golden in a certain light, gathering the translucent debris of all people she passed;

unbeaten, like the orange sweat on my mother’s brows from watching me play in the sun;

fluent, like my sister’s burgundy smooth stories about how age will look on me.

and he picked a hybrid of noun and color.

a single color.

an orgy of indigo and lavender and cerulean and emeralds and sapphires, and he chose a single limb.

who had the time to list the differences between us?

he asked after my distractions and I pointed to the sky, which he described again as purple.

I spat off the cliff.

he handed me a white tissue, which I turned yellow, pushed it under his nose and said, this is sea-green.

he offered to take me home.

the roads were unpaved, brown.

I’ve seen so many beautiful things that are brown—a pine cone, dog’s fur, chocolate ice cream. all those things I remembered disappeared down the highway.

his own skin was brown, like mine, and we were both parched.

we stopped for sodas.

the bubbles, he said, aren’t liquid at all.

gases are colorless, I said, before he could even try.

I drank to a cool, became less toasty.

he called me honey.

when we held hands we blended.

under the inflamed sky I forgot about the browns and the glitters of liquid crystal.

I glazed out the car window in a pink stare, which he called hollow.

I didn’t mind, I didn’t think ‘hollow’ was relative.

every cloud was a hollow shape of pink lips in brown lipstick, parched for a kiss.

if it rained, I wondered what color he’d call it.

I didn’t think even I knew.