Stacey Dye

I am overwhelmed by the weight of life’s
colors and the suffering they signify --

red, for blood, emergencies and trauma;
black, for the dead and the dying.

I had no choice but to dim their harshness,
unable to carry their emotional heft anymore.

Now, I muddle through
a charcoal rendering of this world.

I am as flat as the desert, where those
multicolor sunsets no longer radiate for me.