If Colours Were Beings
Dianne Panther
It enveloped me in a thick hug of clouds and smoke, lavender chemicals choking my lungs, leaking into my heart. I staggered forward, each shaky breath a reminder that something alive was growing inside me.
I’ve always known I wasn’t the same. Other versions of me felt familiar, like I fit in. People used me to paint, to sketch. I was born human. . . but was I really?
From the moment I exploded into the earth, I wasn’t an object. I was a force, a feeling.
Never solid.
Still not.
In the mirror I felt an indescribable shift beneath my skin, like a rush of wavy gel, something sharp and glossy like diamonds. A kaleidoscope of fluttery petals and other feelings I couldn’t name.
My veins were accentuated to a dark neon, like lightning bolts, pulsing with the monster that kept me alive.
I didn’t move.
I flowed.
I was the clouds on a stormy night; the layers of a dress being thrown behind me. I was a galaxy of a billion stars, blinding to the unopened eye, power in a darkened sky.
Every day I looked in the mirror a gnawing craving for berry pie bled into my heart. So strong, almost like I had become it.
The mirror portrayed less of me and more of it. I began to morph into this colour; my veins no longer carried blood but something thicker, brighter, humming with its own will.
My skin shimmered faintly, tiny beads of stained snow as if painted from the inside out. I recoiled from evil, craved kindness, found beauty in solitude.
The colour taught me how to become, feel, react. I realised it wasn’t dangerous at all.
My body wasn’t stiff or pained — it felt light, joyful, free.
And as the days passed, the longer the colour consumed me, the more I began to understand. Nothing about it was pain or anger. The colour whispered differently when I listened. It wasn’t a scream; it was a song—a thousand celestial voices from above singing their blessings to me in the choir.
I realized — some people would always look at me and see danger. They would see sharp edges, smoke, a threat. But there were always bright sides hidden in the same shade. Fear and beauty could exist together, even shadows had warmth if you stood inside them long enough.
I was becoming something new, something that carried joy instead of distortion.
Now, when I look in the mirror, I see it clearly. The glow was still there, but it no longer felt like fire. It was direction towards the light.
What I was meant to be.
I was the shade that invited rather than repelled. I was the hue that breathed aesthetic mornings and sunset horizons. The being that learned to carry light.
And so I decided. If colours were beings, then I would be the version that brought happiness.
Tell me — which colour do you see?