Young Writers Society

I think I have synesthesia, which is when your brain connects one sensory input to a completely unrelated one (ex: seeing colors in your head when listening to music, or tasting a specific food when seeing a shape). It’s not a disorder/hallucination but more of an automatic response. It also varies in intensity from person to person, and for me it’s more mild/moderate.
I have the kind where numbers, letters, and words have colors (grapheme-color synesthesia), and also the kind where they have genders and personality traits (ordinal linguistic personification). Whenever I see a number in a math problem or by itself, it’s like a little “animation” of a number plays in my head and it’s the same each time. For example, 5 is yellow and cheery, 6 is indigo and depressed, and 9 is magenta and a party animal.
Sometimes I perceive music as colors, although not as often as I do with numbers. For example, when I listen to the band The Front Bottoms, it’s like my entire mind’s eye is filled with light blue. Rarely music induces a sensation on my tongue, in the case of The Front Bottoms it’s light and airy and almost like blue raspberry.


Here’s a little explanation of the poem itself, you can read it but you don’t have to in case you have your own interpretation of it:

Spoiler! :

Two of my best friends are going away (one graduated and the other is moving), and now all I have are the memories of them. And I wanted to incorporate synesthesia into it because it’s poetic enough.

The stuff about chips and flamingos isn’t really synesthesia related; one time I ate a bag of stale Cheez-Its and it induced a vivid memory of going to the zoo and seeing the flamingos, which wasn’t related to Cheez-Its at all. But I thought I’d include it anyways just because it has to do with memory.

Edit: i just remembered that one of the friends mentioned above likes The Front Bottoms

Hey Gengar! Wow, such an interesting concept for poetry. I read your description above and find this very interesting. I thought I'd give you some feedback on your poem, so let's jump right in!

right away, I love these two lines:

even now that you’re gone, it still stains my tongue

like a blue Icee on the summer solstice.

your smile is like the number five:

bright, cheery, and filled with laughter.

and every time I’m reminded of you,

it’s like a bag of stale chips and flock of flamingos:

flashes of color and distant twinges of friendship,

washed out by the denim blue waves of longing.

Hello! I clicked on this poem as soon as I read the title because I love the front bottoms. I also read the description and it intrigued me to also read it. I read your comment that gives more background to this poem also. I really like this poem because most of the front bottoms songs are kind of sad with meaning behind them. I like the way you incorporate some of the things you see/taste when you see numbers, listen to a band, or people. I like how you put some things that you personally relate to and put them in this poem to describe two of your friends, and how you also brought in a memory even if its not connected to the synesthesia it still fits into the poem well. I agree with you that within this poem the synesthesia does sound poetic, but I do not have it so I cant say what is like. Overall I really like this poem. Well done!