Headline Poem 8/16/14 -- A life of color

We saw the movie The Giver today, and then had amazing friends over for dinner, so naturally, I'm seeing and feeling things in color. Today's poem is inspired by the movie -- pretty much a headline. 

A life of color 

It's a question 

we've been contemplating 

since the beginning of time. 

     Do we live a safe, 

controlled life, 

    free  of pain (and love), or 

do we drip wet 

with passion and tension 

and  fear 

and  risk it all in case 

there is a place 

worthy of being naked 

and colorful and free? 

Do we live a life 

in the ignorant cave of 

black and white 

without hate and jealousy 

and pride and    

shame, 

all existing exactly the same? 

No! That is worse. That is destruction. 

Instead 

we go 

    past the boundary

walls toward memories 

    of murder and snow, 

cold and ugly, 

awful and impossible to explain. 

Today or then or tomorrow or next week. 

We chose a life that 

drenches us and lassos us 

and leaves us 

cut 

open and exposed, 

bleeding violet and lime 

and indigo, 

     

but also hiding in a waterfall 

with a lover's face pressed to our nose. 

Kissing. Feeling. Taking in it all. 

No color may feel like enough, 

And

until you've smelled 

the rainbow 

and eaten the red fruit of despair, 

you can't relate, or hesitate, or communicate, or deliberate, or 

make any sort of love 

at all. Ever.