The color blue,
A lovely hue–
of solstice.
Child-like smiles, squinty brown eyes,
Periwinkle walls, bare with a chilling coldness,
Decorated with frilly pink furniture.
Yelling in the adjacent room,
Sobs desperately ricocheting
From the walls of the unbearably small room,
Filling the air to the top,
A loud pound breaks the silence like a pop.
The Periwinkle walls close in,
Protecting the girl within,
Shielding her from the truth.
The small, barren room becomes unbearably smaller,
Trapping the girl with the child-like smile–
and squinty brown eyes.
Tears spattered, her world shatters within those Periwinkle walls.
Periwinkle dyes, darkness to purple,
A bruised hue,
Covered with iconoclast posters,
Pagan symbols and crystals,
Poetry etched in the wall with white chalk,
an engraved knife, stained with dried virgin blood,
and Satan written in Latin.
A young girl blossoms in the stark darkness,
Sun beating at the window,
Desperate to save the girl from the evil within.
“Why doesn’t daddy ever call? He promised.
He promised–
He promised–
He promised–”
The walls bleed, the acidic perfume of lead
chokes the girl,
the black walls blind her,
something slick and smooth runs across her trembling neck and wrists,
tight, like chains.
Screams and prayers and sobs,
Fill the air, desperate to be heard in the empty abyss.
The room spins,
the room that was once a bright Periwinkle,
spins and spirals,
All the way down to Hell.
Mecca-Amirah Jackson 