Heaven is Not White

It's the discomfort that comes with clean white sheets that smell like lavender. Laying in bed with your mind in your stomach and your heart in your head. Fluffy clouds wave as they pass the open window and a crisp cotton t-shirt hugs a body. A beautifully brown body with a pale face.

I have walked on eggshells for years and bright droplets of crimson intrude on this lugubriously white world. White sand we walk on at the beach, white dreams, a white heaven.

My stomach is filled with snow and I bask in the unpleasantness of a tummy filled with crystallized tears. I swallowed my misfortunes whole and buried them deep in my core.

There's a vase filled with sunflowers on my dresser but my veins feel weak, like they might snap, like they might crack the same way our rubber band did when we tugged on it from opposing sides.

Maybe eating will help—maybe this pale rice will soak up the moisture inside me and spongy angel cake will scrub away the feeling I have.

The linen on my bed is freshly washed and your stains do not decorate my home anymore, but I am filthy. How many showers do I have to take to wash you out of me? How many pages to I have to use up to make this go away?

You grin at me with pearly teeth as if this has never affected you. As if you haven't covered my beautiful brown body in shades of white and forced cream into my peaches.

My stomach screams your name at night, cursing you for plaguing my skin. An ivory towel hangs from above my breasts and white drips from between my legs and I am not whole. My limbs are heavy and my head is throbbing and my eyes are puffy.

My sweet escapes are noxious; I can't tell the difference between salt and sugar. Self-care and self-hate are one and the same for me now, and I slam myself against my wall moaning in content. There needs to be a way to escape myself without milky smoke flowing from my lips and pulling my hairs out one at a time.

But I feel so out of place, trying to hide my leaking colours from this alabaster world. There's a blank canvas in front of me and I want to explode on it in a fit of yellow and purple. But creamy white was spilled inside of me and I've bleached my hair and I am wan—ashen.

I don't know how to restore this colour inside me; I feel plain, I feel vanilla.

These shades are a reflection of ourselves, and heaven is not white.