Breathing Room

White

White -
it’s a color I suppose,
something artists tend to like
best when covered by strokes.
Does it symbolize something?
You know, hold a deeper meaning
or stir something up in our hearts?
It’s such a simple color, that I’ve long forgotten
the use for it in art.
But I tell you this - White is a color that holds a mist,
an air, you can never tell if it’s truthful until you’re there.
There are reasons why it’s a wedding dress,
or the color of the flying dove, a peaceful sign perched in nest.
White is something that is taken for granted,
tossed around long enough it seems to have been mis-handeled.
No - this generation will never understand,
why White is an important color, why it means so much more than bland.
Sure you can tap your red shoes and find your way home,
or put up your mask for the masquerade and find your Juliet to be alone.
None of this, I tell you, is as White as it ought to be -
it’s something so pure, that a generation so tainted could never truly see.

- Derek Ellis