Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for mature content.
They’ve been telling me I don’t know what green looks like. My friends and my parents. The counsellor that sits cross-legged on my floor. My doctor. The police. They say I’ve gotten it wrong all this time. But how can that be true when I see it all day and all around?
Green looks like citrus, the tangy first lick of a lime slice post-tequila. Green looks like leaves on drifting branches that tickle the air in slow sweeping motions. Green looks like the grass, shiny and slick with morning dew. Green is life, it’s nature and my soul and it’s you.
You are green. Or you were. Green as the tailored suit you ordered to pair with your paisley tie. Green as the flecks in your eyes when you smiled in the sunshine. Green as the lawn we rolled back on when your hand and your heart reached for mine, and the stems of the roses you held towards me in apology, and the garden we tended on the balcony. You were green, my love, sterling green.
I found a box on the shelf high up and inside was your love note to me written not in words but in accommodations. Knowledge of what I’d need. You knew I couldn’t stomach garlic for real but the powders were perfectly fine. You had sourced me a yearlong supply and stashed it high for the most unpleasant surprise unearthed in the absence of you. The labels are green and the box is green and why does everyone say “red” when they’re wrong?
I told them about when you talked me out of sourcing a wheelchair and they pointed and they said “see? Don’t you see?” and I told them “of course” but I lied. I only saw green. I can’t tell them that. That’s my most, most profound shame. You had loved me, loved me in the way that translated me. Loved me in the way that knew what was best for me. How my limbs operated, how my heart pitter-pattered. What I could or could not eat, or say, or do. My body set the rules unless it was you, and you always knew what was best. So I say “yes of course I see red” but I don’t. I still don’t. I just know the right words and the order they go in, but I never saw red. Not now. Not then. Not at all. I just saw you, and my love you were green. Perfect green.
Or maybe I never saw colour at all until the aftermath of you. Maybe what I thought had been colour was just the whisperings of possibilities that didn’t manifest. The ring I never wore, the children I never bore. You were green, or you were something. And now you are nothing but the dark grey night that smothers your side of the bed and the inky blackness that fills the doorway when you don’t come home to me. You are the fingerprints left on my upper arm and the chips in the drywall my friend said to cover with putty but I can’t. It’s all I have left of you. The grey matter that spills from beneath the cracked paint where you broke through. Grey.
Just grey.
Dreadful grey.
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142,152 Literary Works • 676,789 Reviews
i like how this piece shows being in love with someone as the color green. the more i thought about it the more i realized this is such a recurring color in the world and when you talk about grey that made me feel like how it feels to be out of love with someone, and what happens when we let ourselves sit in the "grey" versus the "green". great writing great pacing keep writing!
The piece moves gracefully from an external conflict to an internal, suffocating realization. By opening with a chorus of dissenting voices—parents, friends, counsellors, doctors, and the police—the text immediately establishes the narrator as an unreliable storyteller. However, the tragedy lies in the fact that the narrator is not lying to the reader; they are desperately trying to preserve a beautiful, constructed delusion.
The prose beautifully mimics the cyclical nature of gaslighting. The second and third paragraphs read like classic romantic fiction, rich with sensory language ("tangy first lick of a lime slice," "slick with morning dew"). The language here is lush and fluid, capturing the intoxicating euphoria of early love. But this beauty is swiftly undercut by the chilling revelation of the fourth paragraph. The "love note... written not in words but in accommodations" reveals a deeply claustrophobic level of control, masquerading as care.The emotional pivot of the work hinges on the tragic misunderstanding of "red flags." When the narrator mentions being talked out of sourcing a wheelchair, the outside world screams "red," but the narrator can only process "green." To an outside observer, the narrator’s absolute denial and total rewrite of survival instincts might seem completely bananas, but within the logic of severe trauma, it makes perfect, chilling sense. The narrator has been systematically trained to believe that their partner "always knew what was best," effectively outsourcing their own physical autonomy.
The final movement of the piece is structurally and emotionally brilliant. The collapse of the color metaphor from vibrant "green" to "dreadful grey" signals the crushing weight of the aftermath. The illusion of safety evaporates, leaving behind the literal and figurative marks of violence: fingerprints bruised onto an upper arm and chips in the drywall. The "grey matter" spilling from the cracked paint acts as a grim double entendre, representing both the literal dust of a damaged home and the destroyed mental landscape of the survivor. Overall, an amazing story!!! So much emotion!
Did you feed my piece through chatgpt? what happened here?
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I wrote a review? Why do people always say I look like AI wrote it 😑