I taste, I feel

I taste blue

Not the ocean, or the sky. But the color.

I taste the thick hue just barely under the sun’s glare in the waves.

I taste the dusky tint in an evening rain.

I taste blue, and I feel it too.

I can taste green

I taste the bright and bitter grass that is brittle

Yet frail under my calloused heels.

I taste the green sheen of the backyard after a hurricane.

I taste green, and I feel it too.

I taste purple.

I taste the color of a bruise, the coppery peony that blooms on my skin.

I taste cool shade of an amethyst that does not cut my throat,

But refreshes like a stream of cool water, sheltered water.

I taste purple, and I feel it too.

But I can also taste orange.

And it is bright, awakening.

It even tastes like an orange.

I taste orange, and I feel it too.

I can even taste pink.

I taste the color of a carnival and heat

I taste the stickiness that resides in a numb brain

And an adrenalized one.

I taste pink, and I feel it too.

I taste yellow.

I taste the sun and it burns like my chest when I am awake when I shouldn’t be,

But it also tastes like when I am laughing too high pitched at an hour I should not be.

I taste yellow, and I feel it too.

My perceptions taste like colors,

Not one, not a rainbow, not a wheel.

They taste like everything I know.