I am completely in blue today.
   "Rhapsody in Blue," you murmur. I shake my head.
   "No, just blue."
   "Nothing is 'just' anything with you."
   Blue because it's the color of the sky when I'm happiest, water (the same shade as the sky), the cover of my favorite book-of-the-moment (I'm always reading something different), and my cousin's eyes.
   Red is your favorite color because it's the color of autumn leaves, fire, your mother's hair, and the ink I'm using (it's smudging onto my hands).
   We Summer Salt dizzily through the ocean tide. You find red coral and I find my blue water.
   "Mix blue and red and what do you get?" I ask.
   "Purple..." you answer hesitantly. I grin.
   "I never really liked purple," I tell you.
   "Really?"
   "Really."
   "Hmmm..."
   You distract me by kissing me long and hard until our swollen lips are painted with faint purplish bruises. I'm flushed and out of breath. Your eyes sparkle. "How could you not like purple? It means us." Your thumb gently brushes my lips. I shiver.
   "Well, since you're so persuasive, maybe I like it a little more..." I smile and reach for you again.

   A month later, your favorite color is green. You tell me because it's the color of clean grass, traffic lights letting you go, California palm fronds, and the color my toenails are painted.
   I know you're lying. I see the way you look at me when I talk to other people. It's because green means envy.
   I tell you it's still blue for me. Blue because it's what they call it when you're sad - The Blues. I sense another traffic light color, but not green, yellow. A yellow that's telling us we're slowing down.

   Two months after that, you tell me
- your favorite color is pink only because it's Her favorite color,
- you're sorry about leaving those bruises - purple ones - on my inner thighs the very last night we shared a bed, when it was all fueled by frustration and pain,
- you don't love me anymore and don't know how to tell me except to say just that - "I don't love you,"
- purple used to mean us, but now it doesn't. It means you and Her.
   But I know that pink and pink won't make purple like blue and red used to.
   I don't cry for you until you leave the house, leave me.
   But it's still blue. Blue because it was the color of the sky when I was happiest, a color I never see anymore, crushed blueberries that were spilled in the sink and I never bothered to pick up because they stain my fingers, and a blue jay sitting on the naked winter branch in a tree, singing.

   A blue ocean of tears and five times as many sunny days later, I see you again. You're with Her. She's beautiful and her stomach is round and her shirt is pink and her eyes are brown. You're holding her hand and looking so happy.
   It's still blue for me. It's always been blue, even if you weren't always red or green or pink. It's blue because it's a primary color and can stand by itself, it's the color of the flowers blooming in the park (and one in my hair), the ribbon I won for the story not about you, and my worn-in denim. With or without you, it's always been blue. I smile and don't even wonder what your favorite color is now.