my mother is an expert
on red.
she has worn every shade;
consumed it all.

my father is a barber
at night.
stealing my mother's hair;
consuming her.
he made the strands
a paintbrush.

my father is an artist;
brush of my mother,
paint of his blood,
he colors me
red.

I look like him,
they say.
he sees himself where
he wants to see
my mother.
coat me in red until I am
her.

I was six when I understood.
how ripping off the band aid
hurts more than the cut.
how skin is left red
and raw
where security once stuck.

I was forever and I didn't understand.
life is not fair,
but neither is death,
and what is left inbetween?

roses, to me, were always
sad.
they were anniversaries,
apologies, and uncertainties.
they were 'I love you enough
to have someone else hand you
flowers that someone else
grew.'
they were 'I hate you enough
to make you watch us
wilt.'

my mother is always
anticipating.
christmas songs started with
november.
jolly stockings and deceiving
lights.
red and green make
brown.
they make cinnamon wax spilled
on the carpet.
they make coffee on sofas and
shattered ornaments
against the wall.
they make
ugly hope.

I was fifteen when I looked down
and saw how red my hands had turned.
how brush strokes covered my skin.
how my cheeks were not rosy, but
crimson.
how my eyes were not as young as
they should have been.
when the panic in my chest split me in two.
I do not want to be red.
his blood and my blood are made of the same.
I look like him, they say.
god please don't make me be red,
I will cover your dreams with my sobs.

my mother is an ocean
of red.
painted by a man who thinks
love and pain
are the same color.
I do not know how to scrub my skin
clean.
I do not want to be red,
but I don't know how to be anything
else.