Grey Words

Grey Words

Some words are horrible to hear or say.

When I see them in my head, they’re grey.

Imagine every word in the world had a colour,

and a dictionary was a rainbow.

It would be beautiful,

- most of the time.

Words like “sorrow,” “despair,” and “grief” are ugly to me,

“Ruined” and “regret” are even worse.

Not because they are mundane, but because

they taste like ash, and dry out my throat.

The words are so heavy on my tongue that I try not to use them,

out of fear that they’ll lock onto me and come to life.

Imagine the colours for “adore”, for “delight” and for “energy”.

They insist on being vibrant.

Yellow words are happy and full of joy,

And the red words are always passionate,

but the words that are the hardest to explain

are always grey.

I know words that can have their own spectrums of colours.

“Happiness” can be yellow if it’s exciting, with the energy of lightning.

Or orange when it’s calm, comfortable - like the warmth of a hearth.

“Love” is pink when it’s innocent, red when it’s passionate.

You can even say you’re feeling “blue”, or green with “envy”.

But nobody ever says they’re feeling grey.

Nobody would ever want to feel

the same way that dark clouds look.

“Depression” is always grey.

“Exhausted” is always grey.

“Boring”, “dull” and “soulless” are grey.

“Sadness” and “grief” can start blue,

And feel as cold as the colour.

But if you keep them with you long enough,

and begin to lose motivation,

they’ll be sure to lose their colour

as you do.

Even black words are nicer than the grey ones.

At least the word “dead” comes

with the certainty

of an ending.

You can never be sure how long the grey will cling

and cloud your vision

like a fog of the same colour.