Writing The Rainbow: The Rejection of Yellow

In a sense, I am private about my living space. Not the whole house, just the part of it that I consider home.

Back in my parent's house, this was my bedroom. Few people entered my bedroom even then and after a certain age, I always locked the door when I was inside (call it paranoia, I still do it). By the time I was 16, I had painted three of the walls black and adorned them with red symbols of teenage disturbia (and, you know).That summer I was out on a "sevice project" with a group of kids from school in a village that had no electricity or cellphone reception.

I was gone for four weeks.

When I came back home, everyone was already out for the day. I went straight up to my bedroom and what I saw enraged me beyond words.

My walls were painted yellow.

Yellow.

Yellow fucking walls.

I called my mother a few times but she didn't answer the phone.

When she finally got home that evening I launched at her with all (the sense of entitlement) I had.

Where did she get off violating my personal space and turning it into a fucking "gender-neutral" space.

She listening to me rage for a few minutes and said, "I need to talk to you about something."

She led me to her bedroom and opened on of her drawers. From it she removed myriad whips, collars, handcuffs, notebooks, chains, blades, needles..well, you get it.

"You're sick in the head," she said, "You need counselling."

"..and what the fuck do the yellow walls have to do with it?" I asked getting angrier.

"You are so dark and negative," she explained, "My therapist said a more positive-seeming environment could help you."

My home is notorious for sending people to the therapist.

Can't sleep, therapist.

Don't want to eat, therapist.

Think you're in pain, therapist.

Have an idea? Discuss it with your fucking therapist.

I explained everything to her; told her this wasn't a sickness, just the nature of my sexuality. She said she only wanted to help me, and she was my mother so I was going to the therapist.

I hated the therapist just as much as I hated those fucking walls. It was like living in a toy store and the therapist was much the same. Her attempts to explain to me that I had failed to give a chance to "natural sexuality" made me want to tie her up and show her what she had been missing. I continued to see her for a few months because I was being made to.

Ultimately the therapist told my mother that she had to stop seeing me because I was too resistant to therapy, and rude.

And I unleashed my sickness all over those ghastly walls with a spray can of black paint and my words. No one mentioned the sentences staring down at me from my walls for the next two years that I lived in that house.

When I finally moved out, mom painted over them and turned the walls into untainted yellow again.

I wonder whose sickness they are curing now.

.......

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