Shriveled, clutching a beating chest
A beat, pause.
Automatic hesitation.

A crowded room surrounded
with noise and light and myself
At a stand-still.
Suffocated, snuffed out
Unable to reach--
To grasp inside my throat.

And I see red,
a collision of petrification and passion
still hidden from most.
There's an invisible curtain here.
They won't come to me
and I won't come to them.

Flickering candlelight,
embers across a jagged shore,
I throw my arms out
trying to grasp and throw out my thoughts
before the survival mode
and they're cloaked.

But when I do call out,
will it all go wrong?
I open my mouth
and, look, I did it again
Better to keep it all in
then make another mistake.
And I'll still see red
until my words bleed

I see red
I see red
I see red.