Happy Friday, dear loves, and welcome to the Open Mic! This is our first week in a while without a guest artist. In case you’re new or have forgotten how this works: I’ll pose a question, and we’ll discuss in the comments. They’re threaded so you can reply directly to what other people have written.
To be honest, I almost forgot to post today’s Open Mic because I was out writing with some of my IWL classmates. But our writing session gave me an idea for today’s “you talk” question. It’s less a question, actually, than an open-ended prompt for you to riff on anything that comes to mind. Open your memories and your senses… and see what emerges.
Decoupage mandala, 2009
Choose a color: your favorite, or any color you like.
Now list everything this color makes you think of. Be as specific as possible, but your list doesn’t have to be concrete (i.e., a color can mean an emotion for you, or an experience).
Yep, it’s open-ended, right? Do whatever you like with this. Your list can be a straight laundry list or it can be a poem, or whatever. The idea is to get you immersed in all kinds of sensory and emotional details from your life — and then to share these details so we can all taste a little bit of each other’s lives.
I’ll share my list later, but don’t wait for me to get started! Commence!
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
Green is the color of money
Of envy
Of maritial spats
And lost dreams
The lawn of my childhood home
Was not green
Like our neighbors’
But a burnt yellowish brown
Now, we have a gardener
Our lawn is the color of forest
Except for a few small patches
Of dried grass
Your poem shows me the exquisite ache that you can see inside the color green. Isn’t it amazing that things like color can remind us of so much?
Love those images of lawn. They’re so easy to visualize, and there’s so much about class and difference embedded there too.
Pale pink is on the cool side of warm, comfortable and I don’t need a sweater.
It makes my hands feel clean.
I’m easier to see when I wear it because I feel easy, as if I’m still new.
I love the way it accents green, with leaves and a stem, or on paper, or my sofa.
Babies wear pale pink because we think it’s innocent.
When a man wears it, I want to touch his shoulder and wear pink, too.
When I see pale pink it’s easier for me to hope, and tomorrow shines for me before I’ve even seen it.
wow, I hearted your “pink” poem. It made me laugh and smile. So true.
I love this. And I love pale pink, but somehow I often forget about it, maybe because at some point I decided I wasn’t girly enough for it. These days, fuschia is more my style.
I feel tenderness and loss and yearning from your words.
What color is my love?
green
green green
green like the new leaf still curled with the sun shining through it
green the inside of a leek before it changes to white
cut open on our counter and specked with dirt
the hungry smell of leek reaching for my nose every time I walk by
green the wet stroke of paint
laid on by a round brush to a heavy sheet of rag paper
the drip
the blot
the scrap of white tissue now soaking through with the same
green
that t-shirt you wear
that was a hand-me-down from your brother to your other brother to you
the collar a circle of frayed spots like a necklace of age
that shirt on your body
in the afternoon sun
on our bed
when the blinds are half open but half closed so the neighbors can’t see
that green
that sun
the warmth of your chest the smell of your neck the tremble of your breath
green
“it’s my favorite color,” I told you when I was 17 and you 18
“it’s my favorite color too,” you said
and I opened my mouth to say nothing
green green green
Mmmmmm.
🙂 Wrote this with IWL writing partners on Friday morning. They asked me for a prompt and “what color is your love?” popped into my head. I didn’t think I’d have anything to say about that, but when I put pen to paper this green poem just poured out.
Blue
lagoons, sky, rain showers
limpid, sunwashed
filling heaven and earth
no shoes, no cares, no airline ticket to paradise.
When I read this I can feel myself standing on a beach with the wide blue of the ocean and sky surrounding me. 🙂
Wow! I loved these color poems, they said so much about who we are…
Agreed!! Thank you for writing. 🙂
Red
Red is one off the bat
I’m here, bright,but I don’t bite
My old sports car, red surrounds the rust
and me as I grin
at the smile you give me when we ride
Red on the outside
Red on the inside
Red my heart, red your heart
Red love
Red as exuberant joy! You’ve made me smile and feel the glee of riding fast in a car with someone I love. Thank you!
I love it!