The Day the World Went Black and White

For my muse

The Day the World Went Black and White

By Erin Lee

 

I woke up this morning to a world that was black and white

Except for the red cherry on the whipped cream

She told me she planned to eat him with.

Where you put dollar after dollar into an old machine

At the Friendly Farm and it spits back paper money.

They climbed into the Jeep, smashing the groceries

Not remotely concerned about how the Coke had lost its red

And that money came in the size of cereal boxes - gray.

The ocean rolled to a foamy cloud and all I wanted to do was ride.

 

Thinking it second best, I dream dialed his phone, hoping he’d pick up

And heard the black in her laugh and the way she chewed her potato chips

She told me he was busy.

The bulls stared at me, their horns so long that I was too stunned to be scared

Trying to figure out how to climb over the wires

Without getting my galoshes stuck in the mud.

 

My flip flops, once a fluorescent pink the color of Pepto and moonlight

Tap, tapped beneath them and my tippy toes

Where you stand so tall you can taste the clouds and wonder if you should swallow.

I wanted to say “make them get out” but the mother was dressed

Like Carol Brady, circa 1953.

 

The phone went off like the siren that stopped us once from making love.

I never asked for him to say it out loud and I thought it was understood,

But when he did, he held me tight

In that tunnel, once used as a well

His shoulders wide like my smile and the taste of cantaloupe

(Though I’ve never liked fruit)

And I wanted him to never let me go,

Wondering if he knew where the color had gone;

Drained, the say he said his vows.

 

My English teacher told me I could pass with “flying colors”

And I found it ironic,

Listening to him warn me how I shouldn’t be hanging out in wells

When I was supposed to be watching a movie - in color

About the way things are made and how they come and go.

It reminded me of the cherry and my squinty-eyed musings of her

Tiny waist and blonde curls.

 

I never got my soda but would have picked a cherry Coke

And I was okay with it when Carol left; giving it to her kids.

(Their gulps were loud)

I just wanted to ride back to planet Earth

Where he answered the phone and ate rainbow ice cream

without whipped cream

And we plopped down on the couch on Sunday afternoons

Watching black and white reruns off the DVR

And they played on emerald fields in emerald uniforms

Where his eyes were blue like the sky

And I could taste the sunshine.

 

It's their chance, now to be beautiful.

I smile bright.