only once

He could remember not being able to handle the precision of black-on-white,
red-on-black-on-white;
only once before
in a different time when the world was his home. Her dress, the collar coming around her throat, and her throat beneath suddenly scarlet cheeks when he kissed her hand. One dance, slowly around the perameters of the room, the perameters of the universe, with her sharp and soft in front of him. He could not handle it; he gave her his heart.

black-on-white-on-red.

the long procession of mourners under the sky, the pages of the priest's book & the roses.

the whites of their eyes. the coffin. her crimson lips.

he could not handle the precision of dying, of black hats and the fact that it's all over in one day.

but it only takes one day of black-and-white to forget color.