I love pink. Or at least I loved how it made me a girl. It felt inclusive, protected me from being alone. Pink walls, pink dress, pink tutus, pink bedsheets, pink table, everything pink. The color dyed its delicacy into my days. My blush would blend in with my body tone, merge with the glowing pink fabric layered on top of me. It would smear its peachy shade onto my porcelain body, and the florid color would feather my ghostly, pale skin.

I hate my new class. Tiger class. Solid blocks of masculinity landing right on the syllables of ‘TIGER CLASS’. I wanted to be in Bunny class. A class where pastel colors are chewed in the most soft way one can ever get to. Not so excited, I fluttered my butterfly wings attached to my bag, then toe by toe, I made my way into Tiger class.

There were the boys, and there were the girls. Basically, color coordinates, the blues and the pinks. An oblivious act of prejudice, we ended up alienating boys who were too feminine, excluding girls who were too invulnerable.

We always bordered ourselves away from harsh brawny activities. Those were for boys. Girls would play something called ‘roleplaying.’ No. It is not fun. I got stressed over socializing. These girls whom I supposed as my life long clique, bored me. I lost the patience to even hope for something exciting, something to make me flinch or gasp. We would- I mean they would- talk badly of the boys. I had no interest in talking badly of
something we had already separated ourselves from. I rolled my eyes, giving my consciousness a millisecond break, then rolled them back to the tedious conversation. Immediately zoning out, again, I preferred to reason with myself. I’ve taken a lot of wisdom from myself and my mother. And so, I’ve came to an incredulous conclusion: I’m going to hand myself over to the blue.

I took a last glance at the girls. “Hypocrites,” I whispered. Then disappeared.

I expected too much. As I walked towards the building blocks, the grass field, and the hoard of sports balls, I caged myself in between the borders. The boys looked at me, astonished and unwilling to yield objectivity. I crashed into the fences around me, cells grew taller and shaped an opaque force pushing me away. They looked mad. Behind the bars, animals were being territorial, twitching their claws and sharpened teeth, ready to set an attack. They barked with a grating chord, split into painful scratches, a beat in the heart.

“You’re wearing pink.”
“Ewww.”
“Leave us alone”
I did leave them alone, but now everyone left me alone, and I was alone.

When a princess fails, the castle falls. I returned to my room, sat there confused by the cold dust I huffed in. I frowned at the disaster; the room in its perfection glared back at me. Perfect wasn’t this. When I stopped believing, the pink around me stopped its flaring. I crept into my room crooning the three words directly into a graveyard, “you're wearing
pink”. This place felt like a maze, compressed with hypnoses making me feel as though a stranger boxed these four walls around me. I ran away to a secluded space. Somewhere black, pitched and under toned. I scratched hurtful reminders off the walls, and inked the holes black to seal what was hurt.

She sipped on her tea, with the occasional relief that today was Saturday. I dreaded out of my dungeon, mumbled a short “morning” and settled down on the table. I yawned into a hunched sadness, hooped my pleading knee, then just sat there, a ray of unhappiness below my usual spirt. The little puppies of my bubbly persona emerged with the hounds of reality, making themselves comfortable. I was wearing black, inside and out. She sipped, and scored a concerned look at me. My mom, hesitant and gingerly, asked me, “So... black?”

I nodded.
“Is she already entering a phase...?” she whispered to my dad. No, Mom. I just hate pink.

I don’t hate pink anymore, I have since realized that pink isn’t the enemy. Hate is a raindrop on a passing car, a droplet hanging onto the clear glaze of the vehicle. It tightly grabs the slippery slope, but when it rains harder, the glaze starts flooding as raindrops starts blending together. The vehicle starts moving, the surface tension breaks, and the drops fall away. I was the droplet. I let myself believe in stereotypes, and I adjusted myself to mythical beliefs. I let it control my identity.
Now, people refer me as the pink haired girl, I think it’s a pleasant nickname.