made of red

I. 

to mom, who seems to think all women should act the same way

do you think i am still a child,

and that i do not know

the colour red,

mom,

because i wear it as lace on my skin

and it covers the thin fingers

that grab my waist,

so that i must think of red

something beautiful?

did you know

that red fills my iris to the halfway mark,

like ink

so when my head tips over

it follows in motion,

and sometimes

it’ll leak out to the sclera

and my world will be painted with colour

like streaks of condensation

when i blow into the glass window-panel

and it’s cold out.

sometimes the red

comes up the wrong way,

and when i smile

you can see it on my teeth,

and when i swallow

it doesn’t wash away.

no matter how many times i dab at the corners of my mouth

and in the cracks of my lips

with my handkerchief,

it’s still there

and my words come out in red print instead of black

so i try not to speak too much.

are you scared of me

and my red,

mom?

do you call me

and all my infinities

'a pity',

'a mess'?

do you wish for me something better,

and apologise for who i am?

do you know

just how beautiful

my screaming, sinful

red

truly is?

II. 

to the person that i will one day hand my heart to, even if they don’t want it.

do you see me,

over there? i wear the veins

of my family upon my skin,

and in the grooves of my back

there are stories

like that of which you’ve never seen before,

we won't talk

very much

and in the end you'll walk away,

having forgotten

my name.

and when

you leave

you’ll want to look back,

to blink at me

cause you’ve never been good at remembering people’s faces,

but for some reason

you remember mine.

take the silhouette of me

against your eyelids,

red

against

red space

so you can’t really see me

but can only recall what you think you saw

instead.

watch me wave my hands

like i own the sky,

and smile

like i’ve never been hurt.

take my heart,

and bleed it dry,

then hang it up

on the clothesline.

but be sure to take care,

for if you rub too hard,

the red comes off

and you’ll find it's just some plastic toy

that i coloured as a child with my whiteboard marker.

don’t be too disappointed,

when it’s no fun to play with, after a while,

and you disregard me-

like all the other people

that have ever dared to look back

at something they left behind.

’cause i know too well

that red hurts your eyes.