The Prism of the Stormbow

(Not an essay, not a poem, but a spectrum you can taste)

Intro

Some people tell me “I don’t write as well as you.”
But I don’t believe in “better” when it comes to writing, only different.

Sol ☼

gave me a prompt the other day: “Write something fun, something about how writers are each a color of the rainbow, refracted differently depending on the angle.”

So I tried. I wrote this. It’s not “fun.” It’s not meant to be perfect. It’s meant to be a stormbow; fractured light held up to show how each of us burns differently.

Every writer carries a prism—this is mine

They told us there were seven colors.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet;
as if light could be trained into a nursery chant or mnemonic,
as if the storm didn’t fracture into infinite unnamed hues,
tones that resist taxonomy,
frequencies that vanish the moment you try to speak them.

Writers are like this too.
We are not one shade—we are cascades, streaks,
hidden hues that flare only when the storm breaks at the right angle.
Not the chalkboard arc,
but the impossible spectrum
that refuses to stay in seven.

Every sentence is a vibration.
Every silence, a color hiding.

I write, yes, but always through storm-glass.

---

Red

My reds are never one red—
carmine rupture, crimson pulse,
garnet promises ground to dust,
alizarin rage, ruby resistance carved into ribs,
scarlet hunger, vermilion wound,
rosewood ache, cochineal fever,
mulberry memory, wine-dark requiem.

They are reds that bruise,
that burn in the marrow,
that whisper long after the page is shut.

---

Orange

Orange combusts—
burnt sienna elegy, hammered copper,
terracotta bones, rust blooming outward,
pumpkin laughter gone sour, amber time trapped in resin,
ochre scars, flame-orange outcry, gamboge spice that bites bitter,
apricot pining, tangerine sparks spent,
persimmon pain, marigold prayer set alight.

Orange tastes of ash on the tongue,
smolders as cinder in the throat.

---

Yellow

Yellow refuses cheer.
Gold leaf flaking from false gods,
citrine sorrow disguised as glow,
mustard heaviness dense as bile,
saffron scorch, canary shriek,
sunflower bent toward absence,
topaz fracture, aureolin fatigue, cadmium warnings,
lemon light trembling then vanishing.

Yellow is fever on the skin,
acid in the eyes.

---

Green

Green twists crooked—
moss lament seeping damp, absinthe dreams,
malachite longing fossilized in stone,
bottle-green yearning corked too tight,
olive wars no one won, emerald illusions shattered,
viridian storms, jade envy honed sharp,
chartreuse venom, sage regret, minted lies,
seafoam tenderness betrayed,
verdigris corrosion spreading at the edges.

Greens crawl like ivy—
they promise growth but deliver rot.

---

Blue

Blue drowns.
Indigo weight bottomless, navy chokehold,
turquoise laughter that escaped too soon,
cobalt fragments slashing glass, ultramarine hymns swallowed,
cerulean hollow as sky, lapis ache eternal,
periwinkle lullabies undone, sapphire dirge,
teal fissures widening, azure despair,
midnight solitude, steel-blue subversion,
cyan tenderness fleeting, prussian permanence inked deep.

Blues taste of saltwater,
hum like throats raw from screaming.

---

Violet

Violet bruises the page.
Amethyst jagged and holy,
heliotrope sweetness rotting,
lilac farewells faded,
lavender veil thin as smoke,
mulberry heaviness thick on the tongue,
Tyrian defiance crowned in iron,
plum ache, mauve hesitation,
orchid brittleness,
fuchsia sharpened to an edge.

Violet suffocates like perfume,
lacerates like struck iron.

---

White

White cracks.
Bone brittle, pearl resilience luminous,
alabaster denial, ivory hush, tendons tearing,
linen threnodes folded and burned,
chalk promises smeared,
snow-stained absence, milk-pale longing.

White is dust,
hospitals,
a blade wrapped in linen.

---

Black

Black multiplies.
Obsidian muteness,
ink wails bleeding through paper,
onyx rebellion, soot stains,
coal pressed eternal, jet mourning,
graphite erasure, pitch-dark tenderness,
raven ache, charcoal smoldering,
void hunger swallowing the arc.

Black tastes of smoke,
smells of ash,
an absence heavy enough to touch.

---

Between the named and the nameless—
ashrose memory, dusk-grey surrender,
hunger-gold endurance, bruise-green longing,
shadow-violet ache, stormsilver opposition,
dustblue prayers, flame-rose rebellion,
raincloud grief, ghostwhite murmur.

They shift as they’re spoken.
Colors you can taste, breathe, carry.

I touch them all,
but fracture is always the prism,
defiance always the angle.

My spectrum is stormlit, rain-soaked,
every hue like it has attended its own funeral
and still insists on burning.

---

And yet—even I am partial.

What I write is not the rainbow.
It is the reminder:
light, when broken, becomes visible.
A fracture does not vanish—it refracts.
And what splinters into shards
can still ignite into fire.

Three steps to the left and mine vanishes,
yours appears.

So I carry my stormbow.
I confess my colors.
I hold my prism to the light.

And though I can never paint the sky entire,
I can show you:
the trace of a storm
that still burns through glass.

And you—
yes, you—
you carry a prism too.

Some writers live in neon, in fluorescent bursts of joy. Some in silver that slips, or fragile gold leaf. Some tend the subtle: pastel confidences, watercolor hesitations. Some carry the invisible wavelengths: the ultraviolet poems that scar, the infrared stories that can only be felt against the skin.

Your sepia memory, their ultramarine hymn, my oxblood fire;
together they make the impossible arc.
Together we bend the storm.
Together we prove the rainbow never ends.

---

Reflection ✨

This piece is a confession, not a competition: that broken light still glows, that fracture can be fire, that every writer refracts something the rest of us can’t.

So if you carry your prism: sepia memory, ultramarine hymn, oxblood fire; don’t measure it against mine. Tilt it. Turn it. Let it catch the storm. Show us what only your angle can reveal.

---

🛡️ Copyright Notice

© 2025 Cass Delmare. All rights reserved.

---

💌 Support my Work

If this stormbow lit something inside you, help me keep bending the prism:

---