Risk Taker
Covered In The Blues
Iam Roderick. Roderick Taylor. I am Blue. Everything in me, surrounding me, all that I am is — Blue. I was going to make it. I had the potential to excel and succeed to higher heights, but I lost everything. When I first noticed the color of my bedroom walls changing, I closed my eyes tightly. I blinked. I opened them. I shut them again. Blue was everywhere. It sang. It begged me to wake up. To begin again. To start over. To give it something to ruin.
But, I could not move. I spun in my flannel bottoms. My hands trembling from nothing. Nothing is my fear. How is one afraid of nothing and everything at the same time? Blue is here. It is on my bed. In my tub. Marking the hardwood floors of my spacious loft. It carries a sister with it. Various hues latch on to Blue and I watch it swim up my head, down my face, and into my mouth. I speak Blue. I see Blue running away from my tongue and I try to catch it and shove it back down — down, down, down and deep into my soul.
I fail.
It is not the first time. I know Blue. It comes when nights are coldest and I have trouble sleeping, gripping things that should not be gripped. I am a habitual worrier. Almost ritualistically and as if on cue, I summon Blue without a cause. And Blue comes, ready to remove me from what is “normal” to what my normal is. Society has tried to call what I have something more, but I tell naysayers and pill pushers that “I’m just blue.” I force myself into a world each day knowing that I may fail, knowing that I am already a failure in the eyes of some who cannot see past Blue. Blue to most, is a better color than black or brown or whatever other dark hue people tend to skip over in line for something much better, something much lighter.
I was married once. Once. She was Yellow. Yellow would follow her, turn her into posies and water-colored artwork. She was sunny. With her, there was no Blue. There was no need to worry. No need to be anything else to her other than Roderick. A period of life foreign to us both came, it destroyed what we had. We tried to rebuild, but the foundation of us cracked, rotted, and disintegrated and I am left with Blue. I no longer have Yellow. She moved to Michigan six years ago. I motion over my fingers with my wedding ring. I lower the band near my ring finger, then raise it up, then lower it again. I try to will a time in which I can remember Yellow at her happiest and it was when she was without me.
We would not make Green.
I did notice how much of a risk she was taking turning into something she never wanted to be — a lover of Blue, a lover of someone who would eventually turn her blue too. “If it were up to me, Rick, I’d stay. But being with you, makes everything crumble. Everything. I need to be stable, I will never have that with you.” I can hear those words as clear today as I did six years ago. She was right. I can live with Blue. It cooks with me. Comes when I call it. Has a hard time cleaning up its mess, but I know it better than I know other things, so — it sticks. I work with Blue, we are a team. Blue takes a seat in my favorite chair and does not move. I sit in the same chair, merge into Blue and think about taking more risks in life.
Blue knows me best. It covers me up, takes what I have left of me, and reminds me that who I was — isn’t who I am. It settles into the chair, kicks its feet up, and watches me sulk.
I used to be a risk taker.
I used to be.
Blue
Changed
Me.
Author’s Note: This, inspired this. The Powerhouse shared it with me and I love what this poet does with words. Hopefully, you’ll find it dope too. Thank you for reading.
