I lie on my grey bed, wrapped in blankets of varying shades of grey, surrounded by grey walls. The light pouring through the window behind me was grey. My dog lay at the foot of my bed, grey. But laying in my grey hands was a book the color of the early morning sun. Pages, every shade of the ocean, deep purple, crystal clear blue. Pouring out of the pages is red like the color of lava, changing as it moves, alive. Rising from the page is a rainbow so intense it blinds you.

As grey as the world may be, books hold life.

At age two, I lived in a world I struggle to remember. It was so full of life and colors that I only have the faintest memories of. When I was young, the sky was blue, the grass was green, and the sun shone as the brightest white light into every dark corner of the world.

At age eleven, the dark corners of the world have grown. I miss the rich, vibrant colors of my childhood. The sun no longer reaches into my nightmares and saves me from their dark, cool grasp. I notice a new color, a color I’ve never seen before. Or, in better terms, the lack of color. Grey is added to my diminishing vocabulary of colors.

At age thirteen, my world has become only shades of grey. The sky is grey, the grass is grey, and the only indication of the sun’s rays is a slightly lighter grey.

But, at age thirteen, I wander into a library. I open a book, and I see something that I thought had vanished forever. Red, the color of shimmering rubies. Red, the color of boiling lava. Red, the color of a young girl’s cheeks when her crush glances her way. My legs shake, and my hands tremble. I close the book and am again enveloped in a world of grey. I open another book and a haphazard mix of blues come pouring out like a waterfall.

My world has only grown gradually more grey over the years, but ever since that day in the library, I’ve found my escape. I step into another world: a world of life and every expression of every emotion. I know that there is no escaping the veil of grey that shrouds my world, but as long as I have books, I will have colors.