Colour Cravings

written after visiting Malang, Indonesia

I want to eat colour. Feel blue burn my lips – let red swirl round my tongue. I’d let pink get stuck in my teeth, and yearn for more and more mouthfuls of yellow. I’m hungry for green to be gobbled; orange to be crunched. Reader, have you watched Ratatouille? When Remy’s bites of food force flashes of firework-like visions – that’s what I imagine to happen when an array of rainbows collide inside my cheeks. I’d swallow colour far better than I ever swallowed pride. I’d say purple was my favourite flavour to lick. I say all this, because I adore colour – it feels part of me, so much so that I should digest it.

I visit Malang in Indonesia and there’s a rainbow village. So much colour, I don’t know where to look. Stones are painted bright – mural-covered walls, a pleasing, pleading sight for tourists to view with intrigue. A twenty-something Westerner wanders by the river – its flow nestled between houses. She’s gracefully followed by her best friend, the drone; brags to the breeze a soft, seductive smile until she catches us hanging over a balcony, subconsciously looking her way. Her face falls. She re-films the whole thing.

We sit down on the flower-illustrated ground, watching local kids run after each other, and a cat dig a hole. We accidentally watch the cat shit in the hole – a reminder that our visit is an invasion of privacy. I’m in awe that there are more hues than I can count – desperately painted due to poverty, to prevent evictions in 2016. Now, nearly a decade later, influencers huff at those in the way of their pictures. Those kids, and that cat, call it home.

With all this colour, in touching distance – reader, I feel guilty. I was so greedy – I told you I was hungry. But I went to the shop earlier. I ate breakfast. Surrounded by rainbows, despite my queer existence, I see that colour is far more a part of these people than it ever could be of me. Colour isn’t just a craving here, it’s a necessity – bringing in enough cash to keep their village intact. Colour can’t be cooked; it’s not served on plates. It doesn’t stop hunger but in its own way, it helps. Unlike the rest of us sitting and watching, or filming – calling it an aesthetic or waving it as a flag, arrogant enough to think colour exists for us. I sit still – slowly sipping brown coffee. With every self-conscious swallow, my colour cravings

disappear.

Thank you for reading 💜

I recently wrote an article for Lavender Sound: Why Do Queer Women Still Support Taylor Swift?

For a travel journal entry, last month I posted Bakery Postcards.