Baby Blue [Larry Stylinson]

one

2020

The water rippled as the rock I threw broke the surface of it's bright blueness.  Such a pretty color, blue.  It seemed to just relax me whenever I saw it, which was a rare occurrence because it was such a rare color.  Blue isn't rare, but that blue is.  I know, silly right, that a color could have that much effect on me.  But it's not any type of blue.  No, it's one shade of blue.  It had to be the perfect contrast from green to blue, it had to have the perfect brightness glimmering from it's composition, and it had to have this perfect amount of grey that could almost make you weak from just looking at it.  It had to be the blue that had a hint of teal swirled throughout it.  The blue that looked almost photoshopped from being so extremely new to you and so unbearably beautiful.  The kind of blue that would take you by shock every time you saw it because it was just so delicate and hypnotizing.  

There wasn't a name for this kind of blue.  At least not a scientific name.  I had thousands of names for it though: love, peace, grace, memories, comfort... Home.

Although it was unusual, sometimes I'd be walking down the street and see a flower growing in between the cement slabs on the sidewalk with just the perfect disparity from grey to blue, and I'd pick it and put it in a vase in my house until it withered and I'd have to bury it in my backyard, or I'd see a crayon that had that same beauty that my blue has, and I'd buy it and draw a million little doodles with it until it ran empty, or I'd see a puddle of water that reflected the sun just perfect enough that it creates arrays that had that same glimmer my blue always has, and I'd sit watching that puddle for hours until the sun stopped reflecting off of it and it returned to it's dark color and the comfort left.  

I hated how much this blue controlled me.  It was addictive.  I did anything I could to keep whatever I could find that had even the tiniest resemblance to that beautiful blue, close to my heart.  It fogged my entire mind, at all times of my life.  When I thought I had finally become normal again, I'd see a flash of light that had just the right amount of grayness and my legs would go weak from just the mere shock as everything came back to me.  I was never ready.  For any of it.  But if I had the chance to go back and erase any of it it would I?  

Of course not.

Never.

But I also loved how it controlled me.  The butterflies I'd get whenever I'd see that color.  The way I'd stop mid-sentence when I was talking to someone, smiling as everything came back to me, and they'd wave their hand in front of my face, confused as to why I was just standing there looking off into the distance as my cheeks flushed from the beautiful flashback.  It was beautiful.  Everything associated with that color was beautiful.

Because he was associated with that color. 

It was his color.

My baby blue's color.