BEST OF THE NET 2023; Essay in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2018;
(cited in BAE 2015, 2016, 2020, 2022); PUSHCART poetry finalist

The Color of Fear

I imagine my fears spinning around a color spectrum in a broken world. The stronger the fear, the closer I come to anger, to violence. I land now on a blue wall of silence.

The Color of Fear Art 3 by Casey Taylor

Towering shadows of policemen leave a metallic taste on my tongue.
Dostoyevsky said that the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by its prisons. Police injustice, gunmetal gray, holds a mirror to who we are. It is Zoom funerals without hugs or flowers.
A lack of closure.

I repeat new phrases: social distance, you are on mute, and choke hold. How many times can we bear to hear I can’t breathe?

The Color of Fear Art 2 by Casey taylor

A cobalt blue glass-shard to the eye causes a blood clot to the brain.
Streets and forests bleed fire.
A president tweets vitriol.
For seven minutes and forty-six seconds a white knee presses on a black throat.

The Color of Fear Art 3 by Casey taylor

My beautiful friend hallucinated, unable to catch his breath in some indigo liminal space. It turned out to be cancer, not Covid. It turned out to be death.

I feel a surge of fear-twinged anger at the sight of an unmasked woman in the cereal aisle.

Crumpling like paper, turquoise worries are over things that haven’t happened.
Yet.
My eldest son, who broke his femur bone at eighteen-months, practices pills and pot in Brooklyn, a blister of pandemic germs.
Out of reach. In harm’s way.

The Color of Fear Art 4 by Casey taylor

The loss of currency is dull, toxic green.
The caged bird trapped in a block of ice.
A grown man tackled to the ground.
Poverty, like sickness, can lead to urine leaks, hearing loss, tooth decay.

The Color of Fear Art 5 by Casey taylor

Dusty sunrays slant through a window to prematurely age a peach.
Orange is a room with a low ceiling, the feeling of being watched, the clairvoyant auntie in a rocker, eerily quiet.

The Color of Fear Art 6 by Casey taylor

Luminescent yellow is the hope for a reboot.
The thermometer, rubbing alcohol, and hand sanitizer.
Marching in protests, taking a knee.
Feeling tender towards the lived-in t-shirt.
The mic, unmuted.

The Color of Fear Art 7 by Casey taylor

Like the repair of a bone, rose-pink is civilized.
An ancient healed femur bone reveals humans have helped each other. No other creature survives a broken leg long enough to heal.
If civilization starts there, haven’t we at least begun?

The Color of Fear Art 8 by Casey taylor

Scarlet is the creation of things that no one has asked for, tiny zines, collages, and action figures glued to the mailbox, like little prayers.
My hand smoothing a crumpled paper so I can start over. An opening.

The Color of Fear Art 9 by Casey taylor

5 Comments

  1. Karen Bermann

    Just wonderful. You give me new energy.

  2. Judith Terzi

    This is terrific!

  3. Glenn McGrath

    Wow! Nice piece, Sis.

  4. Bette Ann Moskowitz

    Beautiful congruence between writer and artist.

  5. Diane McGrath

    It’s nice to have similar thoughts put into words so eloquently with colors attached to those feelings.

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