The Color of Blood

by Mona Kabbani

I am a blank canvas. A nothing person. A void that can be decorated and designed but never filled.

I wish I could tell her all the ways her mere existence destroys and rebuilds every cell of my being. The foundation I’ve erected my life upon. How she sets my soul on fire.

And the thought passes me so sweetly amidst this world-shattering violence: If I am a void, then she is utter totality.

I thought the absence of everything was the truth of the soul. But it’s nothing. It’s fucking nothing.

I would recognize you by your laugh, your smell, the way you breathe, and even if I’d lost all sense of sight I’d know you by the rhythm your footsteps make to accompany the music your existence creates in my head. I know you and I have loved you not by the absence of your flaws but by the presence of your darkness.

I know you like paint knows a canvas, like the waves know the shore. I know you like my wounds know heat and the sun knows the sky, and I especially know you by your color—”