VEEDA KHAN

natural hue

my friends are
purple
from head to toe
and they remain purple
even when their skin
turns back to the brown
i have known
their hands are
red
like apples
the soft skin bruised
on the grass
among the beasts
their teeth are
white
like the sun
on a day i don’t want to remember
it beats down on me
until i don’t know
if I’m looking at the sky
or skin

soft bright wet

it is raining so very hard when i go to get milk from the corner grocery store
open 24 hours every single day
and it is raining very hard
because there are no people in the streets besides me
it is just cars sliding past on liquid neon
and the undeniable scent of liquor in the air
so the headlights and the streetlights are the only things i follows as i clutch the slick
plastic between my hands

golden warm

one day you and i will eat fries in the middle of the night.

we’ll do it in a diner because they have those metal baskets that don’t need to be washed because the paper gets replaced when they become dirty and you’ll rest your hands on the cold table and i’ll rest my face on my slightly greasy hand and then we’ll laugh our breath smelling of salt and maybe you’ll order a strawberry milkshake and maybe you’ll ask for two straws but only get one and then we’ll take turns sipping until we can hear the straw on the bottom and maybe with my back against the red leather i’ll remember this diner less harsh than i do now.

maybe the yellow lights will seem softer.

the table less cold.

the people with me,

safe

empty palms

there are no stars in this night sky
just the smell of orange popsicles and rusted metal
i hear the kids climb the chain link fence behind us and
suddenly i am seven years old again
stealing neon tennis balls form the private court across the street
and you are running with me carrying them
your blond hair covering the bruises on your face
we make up the rainbow with our skin
and i think i hate it more now than you ever did

i don’t believe in gold

yellow is the color of the fear in my bones
becoming spongy when i walk down the stairs
the rim of my glasses
when the light hits them
wrong
brown and yellow
blackening teeth
my mouth feels foreign to me
my tongue all
wrong
so i clench my teeth
until i feel my face become one
black obsidian ball
and i hope that when it bursts
it burns anything but yellow

Veeda Khan is a high schooler in New Jersey. She has work forthcoming in Common Ground Review.