He crunches fragile fingers on brittle panes,
Eyes wide and glassy, nose flaring at the smell of blood,
He tells himself he does not do it for the pain,
No, he begs, he does it for the colour.

A crimson dark red that he can find in nothing but blood,
He paints with it, large murals of torturous beauty,
Portraits of forgotten loves and most brutal enemies,
All traced with the gorgeous acrylic, eyes deep with the brutality of raw blood.

He is a criminal, an agent of deception under his own skin,
He is a cliché, forged from misperceptions and guilt he tries not to read into,
Dark hair falls in knots, thick with dried blood just like him,
Thick with blood, waiting to be dried.

He smells the metallic paint on his skin,
Tinged with iron and red rusted mistrust,
Unbelievable in its simplicity,
Blood, plain and simple, straight from the source.