I used to be able to remember exactly how they looked.
I know the name of the color. They call it "hazel". But that's just a weak name for a color that's never the same twice. Well, for a set of colors. Blue, gold, brown, grey. (Like Watercolours in the Rain, for those of you who listen to Roxette. But I'm being silly.)
They changed colors with your emotion, trite as it sounds - but I'm not really sure how I know this. I know it to be true, but I don't remember ever looking at them, studying them, when you were yelling at me, for example. All I remember is one time that I stared into them when we were both happy, and one time, much later, when we were both content.
Your hair fell into this category, too. It looked at first glance like it was a light brown, and where it was long enough to have gotten more sun, it looked a dark golden. "Honey", I guess they call it.
I saw you the other day, and your hair was subtly different. It wasn't the color I thought it would be at all.
I couldn't tell if you'd been tinting it - I remember you buying some shampoo that changed the color a notch towards bright gold or a notch towards burnt red, but that was years ago, and I don't really know if you continued to do that or not.
But it was fall, and my hair changes shade with the seasons, so maybe it was that I hadn't seen you in a while.
Your eyes were different, too, but I don't know what color, or colors, I thought they'd be. I'm pretty sure the season had nothing to do with that, and I know you don't wear contacts.
I haven't seen the colors that happy made in them for years, save once, and that was when you were looking at him, the way you used to look at me, and you thought I wasn't looking. And either you noticed that I noticed, or I just stopped noticing, because it was less painful that way.
And sometimes, when I try really hard, I can imagine that color. But I can never be sure that it's the same color - it almost seems to be idealized beyond any chance of reality, and it's certainly not the color of your eyes these days.
And this had such potential for being a cheerful node, or at least, somewhat more poetic. Faugh! Enough bitterness for one node.