Matthew

"Blue

Orange

Yellow

Blue

Black"

I whispered under my breath, ginger, lemon and honey for my sore throat still burning but not brightly. Hands shaking as they pressed on each car as though they would move or realise I had identified them.

They would gain meaning after my not quiet silent ritual.

My mother drove next to me, a couple grey stray hairs grew from her scalp. Ones I swore she didn't have those months ago, before I declined down every hill, mountain top I danced upon with oil pastels colouring my fingertips ruby red.

"Matthew"

I looked up at her, my skinny fingers inches away from glass.

"Hmm"

"Are you okay?" I almost smiled at the question knowing of each crevice of sin in my scalp and fingertip " I'm your mother you can tell me anything, you know that."

Laughs at my tonsils, then and now. If only I knew what the future held.

"Yeah, I know mom, " nonchalance and dismissal too prominent in my voice. Her slight down look showed that she realised my tone to be what it was, me telling her that I didn't trust her as I should.

My stomach pit of hunger, fear the pain grew slightly with a slight grumble then growl. Head turned lopsided like his smiles until the first vibrant yellow car in which I had seen in time was visible in little more than my peripheral vision.

It was a pretty car.

I like yellow, It looks like him.

She parked the car, I jumped out the second the chance came. Not needing to hear her confrontation and my nausea, intercourse.

I slipped into my room as I heard her wander around the kitchen, I wonder if they ever missed the spoons, cups or knifes I stole and let lay next to me in my bed. Almost as though they comforted me from an image of self or rather laziness had become overgrown in my garden.

Thoughts of what to do, what lies I had to conjure as the years would go. Tell my mother that I liked women. Lies upon lies would stack, until they toppled atop me knocking me unconscious. Or at least rendered me as helpless as a deer in headlights.

Fingers would skid softly against the railing, the nooks and crannies of the walls to my bedroom. A waft of stuff hit my nostrils, I stepped over books. Then shoes a bottle, flasks and why did I have a lighter no two in my room. Why did I have a rendition off The charioteer laying half-ajar the left of monster stained bedsheets.

I really needed to clean, but never did.

Only if will could solve problems.

I laid in my select corner, half my bed it was. The rest clutter. Steps, nearing but I ignored them hoping that will would solve problems as though it had in the past. If only.

"Matthew"

"Mhm"

A soft breath, one of which signifies the gentle manner in which my mother carried. Gentle to be kind but protect from the world. She was like a warm pink.

Maybe she's where I got my comfort from, where my innocence left so I became crimson. But would wander in mud soaked palms and spider-man pj's right back to pink. A mother of mine.

"Are you okay hun."

She smiled, making way in the piles of rubble that of burnt to a crisp Sodom.

"Of course," lies came so easily to red tongues.

She hugs me closely a grasp upon the nape of my neck. Like electric through my current I jolted, her confused brows lift, he touched me there.

There he touched as he called and cried, it was his designated place. Left for him to grasp amidst passion and lust. The lust he had for the witch. - I say witch because that was what I thought of her as jealous clouded my iris.

"Matthew ?"

I almost heard the ricochet of him, waves hit the sand beaches. Gold shine, sun light, moon bright. That warm yellow. He was -

He was that touch of the sky, Greek architecture he was my heel so weak. So bright in hums of Laguna, against my red tint cheeks. The way he left soft whimpers like harmonies at his lovers door step.

"Matthew, are you alright?"

They fell.

So many fell.

They fell so much that my mother could do little other than swipe her finger, the cold of her wedding ring, against my cheek. Eyes red. But tears so great, more than Alexander even they threatened his life and manhood in the way Bagoas threatened his heart.

"It's going to be fine."

"I can't - I can't do this"

Silence.

"Do what"

"I'm exhausted"

She lifted my head, held it as though I were a toddler once more. Made me taste booboos and tacky green swim shorts.

"You'll be okay I promise."

If only promises like will could solve problems.

If only.

"It'll be good for you, it will."

I stared out a window, the car humming against my skin. Another yellow car, the man inside with sunglasses, and not a care.

"I don't want to go"

"You have to."

"No I don't"

Plead for the car to turn back she refused. Her eyes warm, hand resting upon my shoulder briefly. Rubbing it.

" Be nice, Matthew."

I rolled my eyes, red car.

"Hello my name is Daisha Johnson, you can call me Daisha."

My mother knocked my arm a little.

"Hi Daisha, " fake smile, bright as day, hand slightly bigger than her shaking it.

"Well we both know why you are here, so would you prefer mom here or no."

Eyes glancing.

"No"

"Okay, Mrs Roberts would you mind stepping out until the end of the session."

My mother complied waving before turning her back.

Daisha pointed to the purple seat nearby.

"So I'm Daisha I will be your counsellor, also I won't tell your parents anything unless I feel like a- your life may be on the line so you'd need to go to inpatient care or b- you ask me to. Is that alright with you ?"

I nod yes as I fiddle with the hem of my shirt.

"So" she says brief smiles " I will introduce myself. I'm a 33-year-old counsellor with a daughter Eli, she's 6. A cat named Luna, and a wife named Alex."

An audible gasp left my lips, a teasing gaze danced beneath her eyebrows. She smiled pleasantries as though this weren't the first gasp she's received today.

"Yes, I indeed do have a wife. A fact that no one ever seems able to muster, can I not be a black fem lesbian, " she gazed purple into my sole with a smirk echoing pearls.

"Is that a problem?"

She said it in a way, to show she knew or at least had faith enough in me and who I was to expect no rebuttal. She didn't expect a rebuttal.

I didn't either, my tongue stuck too far down my throat. Fires still lit, still in a pit (my stomach), still.

"No, I -no -no."

Her smirk dropped she sensed something in the way I moved. Her eyes dropped to my fidgeting fingers,

"Oh"

My eyebrows knitted, " Did I say something." sweat started seeping down my neck with speed as my voice cracked.

"No, of course not. If it makes you more comfortable we can keep my wife between me and you," she let out a weak smile " I of all people would understand your discomfort."

Discomfort, is that all it was ?

I sat in my bed that night staring out my window, the moonlight shining so dim. In underwhelmed me, yet my brain was still so hyper at the thought some finally understood me.

Finally could tell me what I was doing wrong, how to fix it. How to take of the sunflowers I put behind his ear, the one I kissed and nibbled at till pink, and tell him my love would for him would die like a rose petal.

That crimson would turn blue or something. That his somethings at my neck were healed. That my mind was normal now, I was in check.