Colors

You tell me what you hate of me, exactly what I want to hear,
Foreign feelings mold to malice as they fall on filtered ears
Difference smears an ugly stain on unheard words and standpoints mostly, But maybe then…if I’d been looking closely,

Would there be different colors from your view? Had I seen it? If I knew?

If I knew what hues of black and blue you hid behind your hubris, Could I have treated you better?
For fast-fallen tears dry quicker with time,
and your views were held so different from mine.

If I’d seen pained sheens of wounded green that flashed between your scowls, Could I confess I too have scars?
But malice cushions the most delicate woes,
So why share heartache with unknown foes?

If I think to mind the fragile pink behind your chinks of armor, Would my sharp words strike you softer?
But my regretful sorrow only comes
Long after words have stung.

If you told what folds of loving gold you hold beneath your boldness, Would my heart beat any gentler?
No – tender tones can’t sweetly sound
Until hateful noise has fully drowned.

But if I’d set aside my red-tinged eyes that spied only your faults, If I cast away the heartless gray I laid within your thoughts, 

If I tracked those cracks of scaly black beneath your frigid frown, Must I see some crust of mottled rust as colors blend to brown?

Or maybe past that mass of shades I’d see a vastness brewing, A gleam of brightness not of sight’s but righted vision’s doing,

For the shame of sin’s unbiased as it paints us lame in sameness Though colored with such ghastly glow His blood atones us blameless My melted heart and softened eyes are not from what I’ve done:
I see you valued purely for my God’s a loving one.

Allen Lu