You once asked me, many years ago, what my favorite color was. At the time, I refused to answer. I figure it is time I told you.
The first color I remember is blue. Dark, ocean blue, the blue I found in my mother’s eyes and my grandmother’s handmade baby blankets. This was the blue of the first ocean I ever saw—bright, blinding, and eternal. When others ask, this is what color I tell them. It still holds a very dear place in my heart, though it is no longer my favorite.
My next favorite color had to be pink. Bright pink, the kind that made all of the boys in primary school gag and shudder. Except you, I suppose. We became friends over this color. Me for spilling blue Kool Aid all over my pretty pink skirt, you for offering me your gym shorts to wear for the rest of the day. They were also pink, and I refused to let you live it down for years. Pink gives me fond memories, but it, of course, is no longer my favorite.
I suppose next would be green. I went through a weird phase in secondary school where I liked to pretend I was outdoorsy. I went on walks and documented flowers in an extra composition notebook I had lying around the house. You called me a nerd, but you apologized profusely when your dog ate half of my freshly-planted petunias. I wanted to be mad, but the terrified look in your eye when my mother glared at you was too funny. Soon afterwards, I found out that the sun is hot and the summer unforgiving, so I went back to dwelling indoors. For obvious reasons, green is no longer my favorite color.
After that, I began to love purple. It touched back on my girly roots, but it was so versatile. Everyone could like purple because there were so many different shades of it. Deep purples of the ocean at midnight; candy-like midtones that melted in my mouth; purpley-pink pastels that bloomed in the spring through the cracks in my driveway. My junior prom dress was deep purple, in fact, with lilacs and violets decorating the hem. Your grandmother made it for me, and she made you a matching vest just for the occasion. I thanked her greatly, but purple is still not my favorite color.
Yellow came next. Bright, obnoxious. The kind that smarts your eyes. Yellow stayed with me throughout uni, in fact. Yellow sheets, daffodil comforters. Yellow sundresses, bright yellow sneakers. My Goth roommate gagged the first time she saw me, but I explained that it was not the optimism of yellow that I loved—it was the irony. We gained a mutual respect and I made sure to send you pictures of the day we traded outfits. She looked positively mortified, but I noticed she dyed a bright yellow streak in her hair the week after. What I didn’t tell her was how the bright yellow, the blinding color of pure, unadulterated happiness made me think of your smile, somewhere across the ocean in America as an exchange student. Despite this, yellow is no longer my favorite color.
Red soon became my love. The deep, warming color of apple skins, black cherries, and blood. I loved the red that I smeared on my lips, the red that flushed my skin in the summer vacation heat, the splash of red cloth that stood out on my skin and made me unstoppable. Perhaps my favorite red was the red from freshly picked strawberries from your—admittedly superior—garden. It stained our fingers, our tongues, our lips. When that summer ended, so did my exuberant love for the color. Red was the color I watched seep through your clothes after the crash. Red was the color of your bright red convertible twisted around a tree.
Red is not my favorite color.
Now then, my favorite color is brown. People always stare at me when I say that, but I don’t mean just any brown. Granted, I like many shades. Chocolate brown, for obvious reasons, makes me wish I still worked at that bakery on 6th. The brown of a henna stain reminds me of the culture festival we went to the summer after uni. The grey-brown of wood makes me think of a crackling fire, of home, but none of these happens to be my favorite.
My favorite brown is a special brown. It is a deep, deep color that I could stare, lost in, for hours upon end. It is a brown that shines and glitters like a precious jewel, and if the sun catches it just right, it lights up, amber and gold and glorious, and I cannot help but stare. If I am lucky, it stares back at me.
My favorite color is the color of your eyes. What I would give for you to open your eyes again, love. Please, darling, open your eyes just one last time.