gender binary v1

[alsayn]

I'd encourage you to consider slipping in some sort of other binary imagery just to layer the vignettes. We flip a coin think it has to be heads or tails. Sometimes it lands on the edge. Sometimes it just spins. (just an example of what I mean). 

I added a bit more binary imagery in the yellow stanza. Is that along the lines of what you meant?

The days she wears dresses are special occasions, short skirts are a celebration, 
make-up is worship.--Maybe expand the priestly worship tone "dresses are vestments" etc

Done(-ish)! I'm not sure if I've extended it enough, honestly, but going more into that metaphor might be more distracting than it's worth?

Most days, she wears jeans like battle armor; her binder is a bulletproof vest.--binder saying what she writes.

I probably should have cleared this up, but I mean "binder" as in the kind used to bind down breasts, not to write in. Or did you mean to also include a line emphasizing the double definition of breast binder/writing binder? (Does that make sense? It made sense in my head.)

My other friend is green,
they don’t know what that means yet—--I think this should be moved down below purple. It works as a stark break before your final strophe.

I posted up the audio version because I'm not sure where the green stanza would fit. On the one hand, so far the poem has been going down the rainbow (barring pink/red and blue). On the other, you're right, and it does make for a good break.

He painted it onto her nursery walls like a contract,--Nice simile. This should be a period instead of a comma.

Fixed!

He witnessed it in bruise blue, --These next three lines bruise to disgust would be stronger if you could make them more like the nursery line--draw them out a little more. 

I tried to do that and couldn't quite figure out how to make it work with the nursery room theme without sounding weird and clunky. Do you have any suggestions?

she is mental hospital white, and conversion therapy grey,
she smells like drying paint and her hands are so cold.--I think if you reverse this line it might thematically tie into the poem better. "Her hands are so cold and she smells like drying paint." Its debatable, but I think paint is the better end word.

Again, maybe it might sound better in the audio version, because my voice catches strangely when I've swapped them around like you suggested. (But maybe it's just me.

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omg it's wonderful, i love it to bits, brilliantly beautiful: yeah we tend not to do that here hi aurelia and welcome to the site.

oops might have been a good title for the piece.
the last line before you're [ending about me] etc does the trick for me as an end-line. i have no suggestion about the [cc33ff] lines. at present it feels a little dispassionate. it also reads like it wants to leap out and accost the senses. [which it doesn't do apart from the bruised blue lines] maybe a couple of powerful stanza like that would lift it out from the page a bit more. (not too much though) but keep it balanced. maybe more personal [if that's possible] the extended metaphor of colour as gender representation is done really well, i also like how you use it as an emotional image

I uploaded the audio version with the updated poem. Does it sounds less dispassionate when actually spoken? (I'm trying to figure out if the lack of passion comes from the medium or from the actual writing.) Also, I'm trying to make it a bit more personal with the ending about me, and also going back and quizzing my folk for more info for their stanzas.