Author's note: Hi! This is the first time I've used this site and I'm a little nervous about uploading this but an idea struck me and just wouldn't let go. So, I hope you all enjoy it even a fraction as much as I enjoy writing it, but if you don't, please feel free to leave constructive criticism, it's a great gift!
I am a blank page. Empty, lackadaisical – wait, that's not strictly true. Not quite. This page has been written on, scrawled across and finally cleansed, erased. The faint pencil marks still remain though, their imprint deep and long-lasting. Yet masked, covered, by meaning, by colour. Splashes, scribbles, words, pictures, sentences - all in vivid, vibrant hues.
People sometimes say there is a lack of colour in the world but that's not true. It's lurid and blinding. It overwhelms the senses until there's nothing left but numb, paralysed white. A void. Less than before, less even than the swirling black, tempestuous navy and bloody crimson that I once adorned myself in so effortlessly. Redemption does that – strips away everything. It cleanses but at the same time it leaves a person sterile, listless.
In fact, without them that's all I would be. All I could possibly ever hope to be. Without their shades and tones, inflicting bright, sunshine-coloured flashes of joy and harsh, painful slashes of silver… without that I'd be nothing but scrap paper. Used, unwanted and most horrific of all – meaningless.
Inadequacies and insecurities threaten to consume me. After all that has passed, I should be thankful. Thankful for their acceptance, tolerance, their vibrancy. Being left washed out and faded replaces gratitude with envy and a niggling sense of disgust at one's own existence, or lack thereof.