I run my hands across the smooth red bricks until I hit a rough crease of cement. A fleck of blue paint chips away at my touch and floats to the ground beside my left foot. I gasp and pull my hand away before I remove any more color. By now, the fleck has faded into the dust of the alley way. It's long gone, forgotten. But I don't want the entire wall to fall to the same fate. 

If only the whole world could seem as bright as the way this alley wall does. I've been searching my whole life for something beautiful and here I find it, plastered to an old brick building, remnants of artists whose brushstrokes were too small to fit inside the edges of a canvas. I wish my voice was loud enough to be spraypainted across the city, but who would rather hear a black and white cry for help than a green and blue call for change? Graffiti allows people a way to paint the world with opinions, give a larger meaning to art than paper ever could. Color outside of the lines. Let the paint melt out onto the concrete and seep into the eyes of anyone careful enough to see the beauty of the streets.