Ducks are supposed to be yellow. The sky is blue and grass green, never the other way around. Don't be messy: color inside the lines. Structure, structure, structure. Like the boxed-in office walls of white and perfect rows of black type marching across the computer screen.

Then I met you. You the embodiment of life. You who would not conform, who would outright refuse to be bound to and labeled by society's rules. Streaming in, flooding out: you were the rivers of unadulterated passion and being. And so I too began to see. See somersaults of overflowing color: radiating hues with glitter splashing and a scent like wild citrus fruit. Fierce zigzags and shuddering curves dashing off the pages and bleeding into neon-filled summer skies. Fire trucks as large as houses and those black and white confines swirling in storms of gray. Color outside my lines and blend me in with the free.