Magenta.

Magenta is all long legs.

It is knees and lipstick.

Magenta is teenage confidence,

and that feeling of giddy soaring.

Magenta is invulnerable and

smooths over the fissures

where crimson will crack every time.

Magenta thinks itself sophisticated,

and wants to be taken seriously.

But magenta has a lot to learn.

Nothing that ever lived

stayed magenta for long.

Nothing that remembers

or bleeds true red or

forgets to breathe sometimes or

stares off at blue calls itself

Magenta. Not for long anyway.

Because magenta is the color

of the thin veneer of youth

that wears off no matter

how often we dress ourselves

in contrast to crimson.