It

What once so bleak and once so gray
Gained life again,  but mottled lay
Adrift in worlds of pink and tan
Alone and spotted, it ran and ran
It cried and wondered how to be
Its garish skin a pox to see
With tears of blue and blackish green
It cried and poured out all its dreams

"Oh to be a color through and through!
If only I were as clear as you!
But I am scarred and old and used 
What good am I to the unabused?"

So sadly it marched on and hence
Forthwith without a sight and whence
It stumbled blindly into a fence
Splashed with orange and rather dense
Striped it was, and wavy too
With bits of red and green and blue
And spots and squares and dots and more
The fence led to a wooden door

And through the door he went and prayed
That in it was another laid
In colors splashed in every way
For someone green and mottled grey

And through that door it found a man
Head to toe in pink and tan
And mottled grey and spotted green
Unlike anyone it had ever seen

"Ah, you've found me!" He smiled so,
You see, I knew you long ago
When all the world was speckled and spotted;
Faces streaked and bodies dotted."

"We are not alone?" it asked confused.
"If you know where to look," the other mused.
The first was perplexed while the man did smile, 
His teeth a broken mosaic tile.

"When you close your eyes, what do you see?
Faces of others like you and me?
Patterns or bold strokes; one color or many?
Hopes and desires, if you have any?"

It was silent while the man looked him down,
And slowly that smile became a deep frown.
So the man turned and showed it his back, 
And pointed softly to a hidden sack.

A sack that would show to contain
All that the first had wished to gain, 
And there was a bright light and all colors dulled, 
And beauty and wonder were swiftly culled. 

From behind that wooden door out it came,
All in one shade, eyes bleak and tame.
The man looked on, sad and forlorn, 
And sat to weep that another was born. 

Written by Lojine Kamel and Camelia Harb