Demise of the Crayons
Anger is in the red crayon, stiff
as it moves across the page,
prepared for the occasional decapitation.
Persistence regenerates its tip,
and then strips it, exposing
only pieces of itself at a time.
When it is naked, it is raedy
to depict childhood the way childhood
was meant to be seen.
Others get foolish,
forget their stance.
Green retaliates
after discovering itself
the bastard child of yellow and blue,
which makes blue bluer
and dulls yellow's brilliance.
They both commit suicide
ashamed of their mistakes.
Orange loses its glow
and eventually rolls beneath the desk--
no child will notice his absence.
Purple loses touch. Humanity esists--
somewhere there is a gray area.
White cannot handle the guilt,
leaving black alone
to muddy the sun,
and even he will dissapear
once the sun sets. Tomorrow
there will be nothing left
except battered cardboard
that cannot bear to hold
its own weight.
as it moves across the page,
prepared for the occasional decapitation.
Persistence regenerates its tip,
and then strips it, exposing
only pieces of itself at a time.
When it is naked, it is raedy
to depict childhood the way childhood
was meant to be seen.
Others get foolish,
forget their stance.
Green retaliates
after discovering itself
the bastard child of yellow and blue,
which makes blue bluer
and dulls yellow's brilliance.
They both commit suicide
ashamed of their mistakes.
Orange loses its glow
and eventually rolls beneath the desk--
no child will notice his absence.
Purple loses touch. Humanity esists--
somewhere there is a gray area.
White cannot handle the guilt,
leaving black alone
to muddy the sun,
and even he will dissapear
once the sun sets. Tomorrow
there will be nothing left
except battered cardboard
that cannot bear to hold
its own weight.
Kellie Cannon
graduated from Franklin Pierce in 2004. She was a Dance and English major, and after graduation, continued her studies and received her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College in Boston, MA. She is currently living in Jacksonville, NC, where she teaches composition and literature at Coastal Carolina Community College. Her poetry has previously appeared in Enounce, Ballard Street Poetry, Tapestry, Kennesaw Review, and WordRiot.