Pinkest Pink
An introspective journey and a challenge to self-acceptance in a world where pink is the symbolic color for vulnerability, and being vulnerable is still considered a weakness. Written in November 2020.
God, I loathed it.
As an infant, my mother would dress me as a princess, my abuela would ask me to join the beauty pageant only to dress me, decorate me with, make me pink. My
accessories were pink. I loathed it.
My friends would say pink was a girly colour. Being girly meant: weakness, fragility,
ridiculousness, tears, blood. I loathed being called girly. I loathed Pink.
You see pink razors, pink clothes, pink makeup, pink thrones for pink girls.
Because girls are pink and boys are blue.
En México one says: “Hombre, mujer o demonio?”.
That is such a binarist, patriarchal thing to say… Let’s translate it into colours: “Blue,
pink or yellow?”
Now you have the CYM color theory.
But we’re not robots, are we?
We’re not zeros and ones. So that’s still inappropriate and poor.
Pink is often mischievous. Men that dare to wear Pink are misunderstood. Women
that align to wear Pink are misconceived. What are our chances as human beings?
We have the pink tax, pink parking spots, pink share and our pink staples.
We’ve been assigned the colour pink since the ‘40s, What’s His Name decided that
Pink was no longer a boyish colour, it had to be girly. Girly is more expensive, girly is
more needy.
So Pink stopped being Red’s younger and calmer sibling, and became the frivolous and
weak underdog.
I despised Pink.
As a pubescent, I would take the bus to get to school. Every morning there she was,
my busmate, always dressed with White, Black, and Pink. Before taking il 93 verso
Baricella, mia madre would persistently tell me: “Mirala, she’s so linda con el Rosa.
Why don’t you wear it?”
You ask me why I don’t want to be Pink. Why didn’t I want to be Pink?
Pink was weak. Pink was vulnerable.
Pink is like this to people who think: Pink is nicer than Black and Red.
I can’t be nice in a world that prefers Blue, Green and Orange.
I can’t be as warm as Pink in a space as cold as White.
I won’t survive in a society that refuses Pink’s affection and fights it with Red and
Black.
Pink is painful. Being Pink is hard.
Alas. I can’t be but Pink.
My cheeks turn pink when I’m: aroused, flattered, pleased, loved, outraged.
Pink is my warning.
My irritated, itching, suffering skin is Pink.
The warmth of my Love, makes me go Pink.
My eyes grow Pink with the frustration born from an unjust planet.
I remember my childhood in México, I used to enjoy watching Coraje, el perro
cobarde , ‘Leone, il cane fifone’. The main character was a caring, anxious, devoted,
pink adopted dog that always overcomes his fears and worst case scenarios by
keeping in his heart the fact that he has Marilou: one always has its own Marilou. For
me it was Art and my cats, for you it may be coming home and feeling the warmth of
your hearth.
Therefore Pink is brave, full of love and cozy.
If I can’t be but Pink, I will be the Pinkest Pink.
Pink is compassionate, affectionate, sensitive.
There’s no such thing as weakness and tears and blood.
I take Pink as a promise that will bring me: sweat for being strong, coziness for being
compassionate, battles to win for being persistent, and Love for existing.
Pink meditating is clairvoyant. Pink sees more clearly than the Furious Red and the
Distant Blue.
Pink has a lot of Red and a pinch of Blue.
Pink extremely cares but still seeks the truest truth.
I will try
to be the Pinkest
Pink,
for I need
warmth
and
Sensitivity.