It Started In Kindergarten

It started in kindergarten
And now I yell at trees.

I still feel my hand
A quarter of its current size
Clenched around two pennies
With their tiny dates
No later than nineteen-sixty-eight.

I can yet smell the sweaty copper in my palms,
Palms that could only reach away
Half the distance
They now enjoy from my twice-grown and whiskered face.

Everyday I traded two shiny cents for one waxy carton.
So blue and so white.
I feel my throat gulping the cold thick milk.
The carton's torn paper spout tickled my lips.
I breathed hard between swallows.

That oatmeal cookie that took two fists to hold?
I liked how it chewed.
I remember how it chewed.
I feel it on teeth that have since been lost.
Rumor has it a fairy had taken them.

And look!
Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Purple Brown Black.
Eight fat crayons in a box, always in their order.
Big as clumsy branches, waxy in my palms.
Thicker than my own fingers.
I still smell the crayons, too,
And see bits of their wax in my fingernails
From trying to peel the paper off.
(My tongue poking out made the job easier.)

Red became the shortest.

How do I hold these?
There is a correct way, and too many incorrect ways.

So began my awkward love affair with color.
I'm still in love.
And it's still awkward.
I yell at autumn trees,
Red and yellow,
When I drive past.
I don't know what else to do.
I can't contain myself.

Even today I had no idea what to do
When some random color made eye contact with me.