candy is dandy but liquor is quicker

Hospitals smell white and so does your childhood.

You stood and watched as that milk spilled on the floor, dripping down your leg on the way.

You felt those snowflakes clinging to your fingertips and getting caught in your hair.

You cried as your new skin got torn apart, breaking your bones into tiny pieces. 

You stared out of that sheet you cut holes into, wondering if people cared about what was underneath.

You kept getting blank sheets of paper and were told 

"Stay inside the lines, make it look pretty."

Well you thought you were making it pretty. 

They said 

"Darling, honey, sweetie, you can't color with white crayons on white paper, it doesn't work that way."

But what is prettier nothing?

You lit the page on fire with your brain. It turned red, it turned orange.

It glimmered yellow and then you dumped some blue on it to make it all go away.

What you didn't know was that mixing yellow with blue wouldn't make it go away, it just turned it green.

You crumpled your piece of paper up, pouting in the corner.

And you know what they told you?

They said

"Good job! Beautiful! Now this is what we were talking about!"

They handed you your crumpled piece of paper back with a big red A circled on the top.

You didn't want a letter. You didn't want that piece of paper back.

You wanted your white, blank, beautiful sheet of paper with your name drawn on in white crayon.