Dandelion Yellow
- Hashtag Kalakar
- Sep 20
- 2 min read
By Skylar Nipper
I'm lying on my bedroom floor
Listening to an album
That only ever played before
Within the headphones of a kid
Who lived in a house on a crumbling cliff.
I sing the words to my cat,
Who's dozing off beside me,
And I close my eyes.
The setting sun paints my wall
In dandelion yellow
(My classmate's favorite color)
And I'll be going to bed soon.
Tomorrow I will wake up
And leave for school, and I'll sing
To myself on the way there.
The sound of the living room TV
Floats through the walls
And no one is angry.
Tomorrow I will wake up,
And I am excited to sleep because
Tomorrow, I will wake up.
Have you ever wondered what it feels like
When life leaves you,
But your heart still beats?
Tomorrow, I will wake up
And that in itself is a marvel
Because when my heart was only beating,
I didn't think I would. I didn't care.
Have you ever wondered what it feels like
To accept the sound of a silent heart?
I'm lying on my bedroom floor
And the music is seeping
Into my heart, messy and alive.
I sing the words soft and bad
And it doesn't matter,
Because I can sing them.
My eyes are closed, because
There is nothing I need to see,
Nothing I need to watch;
But when I open them,
The sunlight is sparkling.
Dandelion yellow is my classmate's favorite color.
I know that because I talked to them,
And when I spoke, my voice wasn't cobwebs.
Tomorrow, when I sing to myself,
My breaths between lines
Will fill my lungs with I want to be here.
On my wall, there are photos of me
With bright pink hair and vibrant clothes.
She's smiling at the camera, teal braces showing.
I don't know her. She doesn't know me.
Yet she stays pinned to my wall
Because she may be dead,
But I can finally look at her again.
Her face is no longer a fun house mirror
Showing me everything I'm void of.
I may not know who I am now that she's gone,
But I will meet myself all over again.
I may not know this world that I'm in,
But I know that it's new, and that means
I have a chance to live in it.
Once I had finally cried, finally felt
My chest cave in and stared
At a yellowed ceiling through my red eyes
In the night that used to fill every hour;
Once I had cried and felt a spark,
A light in my chest that said
"Maybe, maybe, maybe I will live,"
I knew for the first time
How precious and fragile this spark was.
Have you ever wondered what it feels like
To accept the sound of a silent heart,
Only to be met with beating?
Beautiful, beautiful beating.
In a way, I guess I did die.
But I hear this beating now and I know
That I cannot let it fall silent,
I cannot let this spark die again
Because my heart is messy and alive,
And the beautiful beating in my chest
Finally speaks words so honest:
"This life is hard,
But I want to live it.”
By Skylar Nipper

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