I once believed rainbows contained

all colors, the Roy G Biv we’re taught.

Each letter discrete, incarcerated between

metallic walls who don black and brown

atlantean arms. Encumbered by

the prison, continuous, but walls

are invisible where bloody partitions

must, yet fail, to exist.

 

Swordbearers gash

and bear blood

on pale hands, dizzy

with their own making.

 

Newton, a poltergeist,

roams the rank corridors,

prism in hand,

hue of white flesh

refracted into a rainbow.

 

He sits down at the piano,

brandishes notes from sturdy

keys that cough up a scale

in C major, though only

the ivory-skinned inmates

dance and revel in the music.

 

Skin glowing,

they smile

knowing that all colors

are born from the white light,

the light oozing from their pores.

 

Gaping holes remain

where black keys once stood.

Songs of accidentals:

sharps and flats

once existed like

a phantom limb.

 

My screams only merge with

the melody like

an intentional harmony

succumbing to the subwoofer that

ensnares me, almost

escaping.