Trifecta, Week (Holy Cow) 47 -- Black

This is my entry for this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge.

As usual, we are using the third definition of a word selected by those crafty-but-cute Trifecta editors. I personally picture them with dancing around a cauldron.

This week's word is black.

BLACK

3: dressed in black

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Sartorial Therapy

I wear black. Not sometimes, all the time. Pants, shirts, dresses, coats, skirts, tights, socks and shoes. Black. Sure I have this one bulky hot-pink woolen scarf I knit myself for really cold days, and I did wear a red skirt once. But black is it, down to my pajamas and undergarments.

It may surprise you to know, like the childless and unmarried, one who chooses to wear black is endlessly grilled on why, when will this change, what's wrong with you. Heads shake. I would say "nothing" but that is not entirely truthful. It’s just, you know, what right have you to ask?

Listen. I am colourful enough. I spout opinions, don’t know how to keep quiet. I am loud; I call attention to myself by default. I stick out like an infected, inflamed cuticle.

I don’t need colour.

More significantly, when I was a child, another mercilessly critiqued my wardrobe misfires and the unique items that I wore -- lilac shoes, peach pants, a puffed-sleeved, pinstriped blouse that buttoned up one side of my newly-developed bosom. I still hear that kid’s taunts, others gleefully joining in. That was just the tip of my life of being bullied.

That child is now adult, and wishes I would "stop calling attention to myself" for suffering her behaviour. That was then, this is now, get over it.

But my childhood scars are no different than those of a woman who has had cancers cut from her body: scar tissue left behind hardens over time and irritates the flesh around it. The remedy is for a surgeon to score the tissue with a scalpel. My own remedies are to stand out less or to scratch at the memories 'til I bleed.

My predilection to black drives some people to distraction. On that single day I sport my scarf, they effuse over colour’s cameo in my life as if it changes the world. They present me more colourful items; my rebuff bites hard.

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The rules:

• Your response must be between 33 and 333 words.
• You must use the 3rd definition of the given word in your post.
• The word itself needs to be included in your response.
• You may not use a variation of the word; it needs to be exactly as stated above.
• Only one entry per writer.

This week's word is black.