Published May 12, 2014
"You reminded me of my mother."
His mother was white, his father was black. Is it odd that I never realized we were different? Brown is not a primary colour. To get it you have to be willing to mix black, yellow and red: his father, mother, and the anger passed down to him through generations of rejection and various clashing expectations. At least, thats how I think of it. The only time I realized the significance in skin colour was when I caught my fingers lazily circling his black curls, wondering how they could be so stark against brown skin, and my fingers so pale compared to both. Parts of my body resting against parts of his, a beautiful disparity.
That skin made me realize how brown and black, so similar in colour, could clash hypnotically- lull me in more than bright colours ever could. Because of him, I still find myself not being dazzled by bright daylight or blinding sun beams, but by shadows and shade. We did not inhabit bright sunny days, the idea of us together did not even exist in them. I searched for why we only existed together in alleyways, corridors and behind walls in the shadows his eyelashes cast on his cheek. Now, on brick walls and polluted, dusky skies I hunt for the exact shade that reminds me of his face when it was flushed, red blood rushing to the surface of muddy flesh, his own body betraying his feelings.
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139,529 Literary Works • 672,599 Reviews
Hello there, and happy review day!
Since the previous reviewers have already pointed out all of the grammatical errors, I'll be reviewing content.
I like how this piece explores the relationship between not only colors, but between people. It reads almost like poetry in prose form. This could easily be separated into several different lines and then put into the "poetry" category. It's more of a poem than a short story, so you might want to think about doing that. I do think that the first little bit of dialogue is unnecessary and doesn't really add anything to the rest of the story.
The second paragraph makes less sense to me than the first. I think you could clarify a bit more as to what's going on. Did "he" leave the speaker? Are they separated? It's very confusing, and you could benefit from making it less so.
I like the wording, it's so poetic, as I said before. It's sweet and melancholy. Good job, and keep it up!
heyo
At first, I wouldn't really be sure how to categorise this work, but I guess it says it right that it's a short story. Even though it;s meant to be brief, I feel like you cold expand on the points you have here and make them a bit bolder. Unless it was your intention to create something specifically of this length.
So, the only bit of dialogue in the piece is the first line, but it looks a bit out of place because it's not part of the rest of the text visually; and there is no other speech in the text either. I am curious as to why you chose to include this and structure it this way.
Also givign you kudos for the title by the way, that was what drew me in.
'That skin made me realize how brown and black, so similar in colour, could clash hypnotically- lull me in more than bright colours ever could.' As for this description, it's very clear the kind of message you're conveying here.
The whole piece in terms of characterisationa nd setting is all very hazy and non-descript, but I think that makes the charm of the work somehow. I woul dlove to see more of this.
Keep writing.
Here's some corrections/suggestions:
These are two independent sentences. Use a semi-colon to keep the quick-reading nature.Put a comma after 'it' because you have a preposition of more than three words. I liked how you associated the colors, however, yellow makes no sense here. 'Yellow' is the racial-slur color toward Chinese, not Caucasians.
Apostrophe. Contraction.
Colon instead of comma here, since it's a concluding thought.
If you're gonna use a hyphen for interruption, it should be either a single colon with one space on both sides or a double hyphen with no spaces. However, I feel this type of hyphen is misused here. It might be better adding an 'and' here and removing it.
Comma after 'skies'. Same preposition rule as above. This is optional, but if you're worried about here being too many commas, you can use the interrupting hyphens here (you would have to replace the one after 'now' though, too). 'Flushed' and 'red blood rushing' and synonymous, therefore, they're repetitive when side by side. Also, I feel like mentioning of him flushing is illogical her. She says she's looking for shade like his skin, but the red color doesn't work with that. The last comma should be a period since they're both independent. If you decide to keep the blushing part in, I would suggest removing 'when it was' and adding a colon after 'face'.
Overall:
For a short piece, you covered a great message that is twist-able and debatable. Your best moments in this piece was your description of the entwining of the bodies and your first few lines, in which you showed this person associating color in relation. It told us so much of his background and her without much explanation. Honestly, just those lines alone you could read and get the all of what this story was giving off as a message, other than the romantic attachment.
However, there was a few instances where I wish you would allow you reader to infer things more, like:
Both of these sections are unnecessary because we can infer them from you story. You've been talking solely of him, so of course he's the reason. We know you're no use to the significance of skin color from you third sentence and even the ending of this sentence rehashes it.
Otherwise, lovely work. ^_^b