The Colours That I Took For Granted

A soft crunching emitted from the cold white snow as two large boots step onto it, a cold, silent wintry night, nothing but cars driving by, the occasional person walking opposite your destination, no sense of warmth to be found but only in your home, that overpriced shoe box where you can hear even the daintest of movements from your neighbor, not a neighborhood per say but a giant concrete box with sterile, dimly lit halls, everyone within their own overpriced shoe boxes just "minding their business" you've lived here for two years, almost three but you don't know a single one of the people you co-inhabit this oversized drawer, everyone packed neatly and tightly in their own drawers, within the safety of their shoe boxes - Is this my life now? - the only words to utter out of your mouth after looking both ways before you open that door and enter your own little shoe box. - Clack* goes the lock and - I'm home... - you say, with little to no enthusiasm behind it, it makes you wonder - Is this really better? - and the economy, in all of its crumbling glory will tell you - of course it is! - with so much enthusiasm it somehow loops back to dread, you take your boots off by the door, hang up that giant coat that protects you from the unbearable and wicked cold of this land, this cold that feels like a specter looming over you as though saying to you - Get out! And you sit down in your once cheap IKEA couch that now is doubled in price since you bought it, barely any food in the fridge - yep, out of money again! You think, another night going hungry, the bills had to be fed after all, if they're not fed, you're not safe. You take your phone out of your pocket to go into Instagram, scrolling goes on and on and on when suddenly, you hear a tune that awakes something in your heart, this tune that you'd never heard before but for some reason it makes you reminesce, the vocals start - "Otro Sunset bonito que veo en San Juan" and somehow you find yourself back there, back where you came from, where you are from and just as suddenly you remember it all, the smell of the foods from the various eateries, the Empanadillas, the sancocho, the cola de vaca and rice. You hear the mix of old Salsa songs mixed with the Reggaeton being blasted from someone's '97 Camry. The laughter of the old folks enjoying themselves as they play Dominos and the Clear blue sky with the sun shining, that heat you once thought unbearable and now is sorely missed. The sound of the waves on the shores and the sea breeze in the air. The common courtesy of holding a door open for someone or someone telling you "Salud!" When a sneeze is heard, a cough is felt or a throat is cleared, not out of rudeness but out of niceness more often than not, many of my kin living here have been warped from the frame they grew up in, this land turns them hostile, lonely, and festers that violence that is unfortunately as part of our society as any other's but in the shape that this land feels they need to be placed in, we are loud, boisterous, we have our flag everywhere we can but it's obnoxious when we do it, when the flag of the many stars is flown it is a sign of pride and duty to this land. This land whose colors have been stripped for others to make themselves more interesting to others, like a peacock who feels the need to let everyone know its presence but in reality, that is a vulture, those colorful feathers are the remnants of the countless victims from who it has stripped those colourful feathers from. It wants to take away your colours, it wants my people to be colourless like itself, under all of those feathers is nothing but a colourless white, never satisted by what it has taken, it wants all until there is nothing left, your colourful land will just be another victim of its greed, its never-ending hunger to fill that colourless void within itself. The effects this song has had on your Core has awoken something you thought you'd never feel for your life - longing - a longing to return to those oh so colourful roots that fill you with joy you thought lost. But of course you remember the state of your home's economy and remember, that this, the best you can do in this land is still leagues better than what your land can offer - yeah, that's why. - is what you say to yourself each and every time to quell the storm in your heart, the unease of being here, the alienation of being alone in this land, this cold, desolate and crumbling land. Somehow - this is still better! - you'll say to yourself, after all - food is cheaper! - and that's true, but also worse for you - I get paid better here! - is your mind's next step, and rent is still rising - Well, what about... what about... - suddenly it dawns on you that all of this suffering, all of this misery and all of this strife, how is it any different than what your home is going through? - well, we're bigger! There's more people here, more opportunities here!- and what's have you done with said opportunities? Where are these opportunities? You have a stability that can fade with the loss of one day's worth of work, you cannot properly feed yourself, you have made no connections of note but yet you will argue that this is still where you would rather be, a colourless void that absorbs your own colours until you are as colourless as that vile creature is. Have at it, just know when you are old and the colour drained out of you, you would be no more than another colourful feathers, added to that creature's coat.