I'm sat on the front steps with my knees drawn up to my chest, watching the world paint itself around me.

Not with brushes, but with people—each one stained in a different hue of feeling.

There’s Mister Dauda in the house across from me.

We all call him "Mallam," like the war gave him a new name. He sits on his porch every morning. Same chair. Same scowl. Same sky overhead, though it never seems to soften him.

I think of him as Crimson—not the kind that burns bright, but the kind that has cooled into coals, buried under years of silence and the discipline of routine.

Some mornings I wave. He doesn’t wave back. But I once caught him humming a song I knew from childhood, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of something that wasn’t war.

Mrs. Bisi, three houses down, is Olive Green—the colour of things that try to grow after being stepped on.

She waters her garden with precision, like she's making peace with the parts of herself that wilt in secret.

She waves at me, but her smile is tired—the kind that has learned to expect nothing in return.

Then there’s Chuka, my cousin, who only visits on weekends.

He is Amber—loud and full of sunshine. But when he laughs, it stumbles.

His father left two years ago, and now Chuka wears joy like a hand-me-down shirt: too big in some places, too tight in others.

Tare, who lives upstairs, is Slate Grey.

He doesn’t say much. Always looks like he’s mid-thought, but never mid-sentence.

He reads poetry in the dark, as though light might dilute the meaning.

Sometimes, I think he’s trying to remember a version of himself that wasn’t shaped by silence.

My mother smells like lavender and boiled rice.

She folds memories into wrappers, tucks prayers into the hems of curtains, and hums songs no one else remembers the lyrics to.

Sometimes I catch her looking out the window—not searching, just remembering.

I once asked if her silence was taught, and she said, “You’ll understand someday.”

I think I’m living in those days.

And me?

I think I am Indigo, though not everyone sees it.

Some people look at me and say, “You’re so calm,” but inside, it’s a storm with polite manners.

It’s the sound of music underwater.

It’s the kind of feeling you can’t explain without getting lost in the middle.

Now I’m a Prism.

I crack open—not to break, but to refract.

Every hue, every feeling—evidence that I am still becoming.