You're right. This is not a picture of beige carpet. My color prompt was actually "cream" today. The poem is what came of thinking about neutrals, which got me thinking about apartments I used to live in. Free association, y'all. Try it sometime.
Apartment Beige
Good morning, cardboard boxes stacked
like ammunition in the corner, along walls,
in every available space that isn’t mine
yet. Good morning,
clean, faded beige carpet.
I moved out on your doppelganger yesterday
but here you are anyway, back in my life already.
I have not yet made barefoot prints
in your just-shampooed plush, all dolled up
waiting for me to waltz in.
Erased are all the marks
left by your last live-in—at least, enough of them
to make it feel fresh.
My skin on white on cream
on beige—our relationship begins, chaste and neutral.
There hasn’t been any dropped spaghetti sauce yet.
No late-night red-wine stumbles. No exploding words
ink splattered on the walls, no five-a.m. path worn
from bed to coffeepot.
They will come—they always do.
But soon enough.
Today, good morning—
I will sit cross-legged on the floor with the cat,
drink golden tea in sunlight, and begin the process
of making you my own.
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