a choice of color

When you were a kid,

When you were still learning animal names,

And awed by the world around you,

What did it mean when you looked up,

At other kids, at adults,

When you smiled and said, my favorite color is,

blue, pink, green orange yellow purple red.

Maybe it was conforming to a standard, pleasing people.

Or maybe favorite meant familiar, meant fascinating, meant fun.

Maybe when you grow up and realize,

You never chose your favorite color.

You branch out, never quite settling on one,

Or pick one and hold fast until it becomes your new normal.

But you still get a feeling from that very first color.

And maybe your first choice was bias,

Maybe you didn’t really get a choice at all,

But you spent years loving that color.

Maybe we can learn to love not in spite of, but even more so because of

The choice we never had.

Because there were people who wanted you to love this color.

So maybe we can still look up and say, my favorite color is,

red purple yellow orange green, pink, blue.

And we might have been pushed into it, but maybe that's okay