Colorblind
Liana Hanokaee
Sometimes he would drive me to the beach at night without me having to ask. There was something about not being able to see the defining line between the ocean and the sky. I knew he wanted my company when he drove all the way to Malibu. Sitting next to him in his older brother’s old, illegally tinted, Audi, I carefully looked at his military haircut, his faded black jeans with zippers, and the same black t-shirt he always had on. I made a reference to the movie Cars. He had never seen it. “Am I talking too much? The more you talk, the more I get out of you, so it’s good for me. Keep talking”. Was he analyzing me or actually listening? 1:30 am steered our conversations to God, and aliens, and what he wanted to become and what I didn’t know I wanted to become. “The world is an illusion, don’t you think? What are you talking about? This world is real”. 2:30 am he started speeding back like he was Lightning McQueen. It was past the time he would be able to get home and not wake his parents. “Well you used to be shy around people. So why can’t you let that go?” His face didn’t move and he kept his Earth brown eyes on the highway. “I made the decision to stop being shy on Yom Kippur years ago. If you stay shy and quiet, it is because you are lazy. Take it from someone who knows.” We existed in a world that he did not choose to believe. “Not everything should be taken personally. Some peo- Of course it should”. Stubbornness had his power confined or did he have power over his stubbornness and mine? We arrived at my off-white apartment, he rolled the black tinted windows of his car down and I remembered the blue of the sky and the ocean, the brown of the roots of trees, and the green of the grass we walked along. But black and white remained with me and I wouldn't see color for a long time.
I am having a hard time reading this poem in this format, because both the text and the background are dark. So I am going to cut and paste the poem into a Word doc and offer comments to you there, which I will email to you.
ReplyDeleteI love the ending of this poem paired with the title. It really emphasizes the impact that the individual the speaker is writing about had on the speaker. I also like the flow of this, it feels as if we are experiencing it at the same time as the speaker. The format does make it difficult to read, but maybe that was on purpose? With the title being about color blindness and how the vibrancy and colors of life are not as bright for the speaker anymore...
ReplyDeleteLiana I love this and I love the use of prose so awesome. I love the dialogue here how you ask if your talking too much and then show how your mind questions things that the other person can’t hear but we get to know. The time stamps really do it for me I just love that. It makes me feel like I am in the car with you, so good. I love how as the time gets later things progress. Towards the bottom you say “I remembered the sky and the ocean are blue” I would suggest rewording it to say I remembered the blue of the sky and ocean. To really highlight the color idea. Going forward I suggest putting the colors first also the brown of the trees, the green of the grass we walked along. Then you can remove the But in the last sentence to powerfully show this hard emption. Emphasizing color again on black and white which unfortunately are your color scheme. I love this prose poem and how you told it in a story form, so moving!!
ReplyDeleteI love this- I feel like I'm in the car with you. That being said, his first red flag was never watching the movie Cars. The line '1:30 am steered our conversations to God, aliens, what he wanted to become and what I didn’t know I wanted to become.' is extremely powerful and creates a sense of deja vu, an ode to teenage. years and the ignorance of youth in terms of the future to come. The constant reference to the movie Car gives a sense of innocence and his lack of, by saying he's never seen it- it means he's never had it (innocence). Color generally represents adolescent, and I wonder if thats the reason he never wears a colored shirt and the reason you leave without seeing it (color) as well.
ReplyDeleteI found the prose a little hard to follow but there were lines that really stood out to me. I think the way its written as a prose is what made it hard for me to follow. I loved that you added in the time along with your dialogue.
ReplyDeleteYou make me feel as if I'm in the car with the speaker and experiencing their trip. I like how the later at night it is, the more crazy the conversations become - it's super realistic! The only critique I have is to watch out with grammar. For the most part you speak in the past tense but sometimes you use the present - is this on purpose?
ReplyDeletethe dialogue is the most important part, but this also screams stream of thought. this moment feels unfiltered (and colorful), which draws such a painful comparison to how you lost color at the end and can't piece back the beauty of those memories anymore.
ReplyDelete