Unnaturally Blue

Blue never did seem natural, to me.
The way Axelle Red danced against
a wall of blueness in Sensualité – it
seemed gloriously artificial. When
I picked a blue crayon it seemed the
odd one in those standard sets with

red, green and yellow. That trio are
of the earth and harvest, autumn and
spring, fruit, sand, soil, volcanic rock,
ferns and bark, fur and feathers, flesh.

Blue is of the unobtainable: sea and
sky. It is evidence of what we cannot
ever harness. The sea in a jar is not
blue. It is only blue as it sprawls still
and flat, reflecting the sky. There is
no blue plant or animal, just the odd

head of a flower or front on a bird,
small, fragile things, like sapphires,
a reminder of fleetingness, scarcity,
glorious wildness and bigness and
foreverness and loss. Paint us blue:
we may not last, but we will dance
like Axelle Red and reflect the sky.

By Elizabeth Gibson

Biography:

Elizabeth Gibson is a Masters student at the University of Manchester, UK, and a Digital Reporter for Manchester Literature Festival. Her work has appeared in The Cadaverine, London Journal of Fiction, Octavius, Severine and Ink, Sweat and Tears in the UK and Sea Foam, Effervescent, Gone Lawn, Firefly and Siblíní in the US. Her work often incorporates LGBT themes. She tweets at @Grizonne and blogs at http://elizabethgibsonwriter.blogspot.co.uk.