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Amy Marques
Color Coded
They came in the mail, little passport pouches full of the three official colors. Fear of speech had reigned after the Babelian polarizations, until our silences shut down schools, closed hospitals, and bred chaos. Until world authorities were quietly compelled to seek solutions.
At first, the cards remained close to our chests, and we rarely changed the expressions on our faces as we gingerly lay them out on tables. Red, yellow, green.
When a raised hand signaled, we’d point at a color or hand a card to the would-be interlocutor. The colors swept away eggshells and delivered us back to solid ground. Before long, we felt this is how conversations should have begun all along.
We learned the singe of red boundaries. Invitations to leave. To walk away before we fell off a cliff of words we’d later regret. The averted crashes were a kindness. A pause.
Yellow emanated a warm glow that slowed us down, melted off layers of thoughtlessness, smoothing our rough edges. Our words were clearer, precise, wise. There was joy in meandering and exploring the forks in our roads of thoughts.
Everywhere you looked there were colors available for those in need: subways, restaurants, even public bathrooms. Cards were shaved and melted and cut and turned into chips and rings and nail polish. The middle finger was usually painted red.
Everyone lived for the greens, soft rolling hills and gentle lanes where ideas dug deep and blossomed by the side of the road and our words pollinated each others’ imaginations, roots intertwining as we reached heights we’d not imagined.
Amy Marques has been known to call books friends and is on a first name basis with many fictional characters. She has been nominated for multiple awards and has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as Streetcake Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, MoonPark Review, Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Chicago Quarterly Review and Gone Lawn. She is the editor and visual artist for the Duets anthology and has an erasure poetry book coming out in 2024 with Full Mood Publishing. More at amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.
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