this guilt,
is eating me alive.
i think it would hurt less,
if beetles did instead.

Who has picked up pencil colors,
Such deep red colors,
And lighted a little red fire,
on that pine shrub:
Who, O Who, has made
this red cardinal!
On this colorless white
morning, who made my
morning, lucky with red!

© Manan sheel.

What’s said is said, what’s done is done
I wish I could tell you there are still days in the sun
But you pulled the trigger and I jumped the gun
And just like that you and I were gone

We tried to save what was already dead
We didn’t realize we already pulled the thread
What’s left of us is nothing but regret
What once was white, has now turned to red

It was beautiful, it was better than summer
What we had together, I will cherish forever
I know we ended, I know it’s all for the better
But I’ll still miss the times we spent together

I’ll always remember each afternoon
The sunset and the breeze each day of June
The song that we always rewind from that album
Somehow I feel these memories won’t leave anytime soon

I miss you but I won’t chase after you
After all, we both know what we had is through
No turning back, let’s leave without any clue
To where you’re headed, I’ll hope to never find you

No twinkling red giant star
Glistens with more red than your lips.
No verdant green of prairie grass
Can be more fertile than your hips.

The sky’s blue hues from morn to night,
Are pale against your royal soul.
The softened tan of perfect skin
Colors my heart out of control.

The yellow sun is cold and dark
When your aura is on display.
Like whitest white more blameless than
A child on his very birthday.

In you is all that can be seen,
In ways that colors only know.
Your gifts of beauty more vast than
The colors across the rainbow.

I'm lying on my bed and Green Day is singing,
I'm drinking my tea and sometimes i'm thinking.
Dreaming about the time when we'll be together,
If you left me alone tell me i'll go to where?

My cat is sleeping early today as always,
I've tried to walk to you with the all ways.
But you burned down every bridge between us,
You gone away and now i'm totally in muss.

Red
Red is Mondays, swirling in a poisoned cloud
Like the aether
Ready to grab my hand
And throw me into the middle of the week
Before I know
What it is exactly that I have touched
And before I am ready as well

Red is apples
Macintosh melancholy
And candle wax galas
Red is an explosion
Of dark magic
Red and black, the perfect duo
Twisting and weaving in their dance
All low notes
And timpani rumbles
And middle C
And like the dueling harmonies
Red is too loud
Too bright
And at the same time
Always present
Always safe

Red is blood
In the same way my emotions are of pearl
Luminescent and shifting

If you see them
Something’s wrong

amidst the rain
rain in eyes
eyes all red
red like fire
fire in heart
heart with pain
pain of love
love for you
you and I
I for you

a wisp of smoke curls up--heavenward
until it disintegrates into nothingness

a burnt tip-- alighted by an orange flame
that flickers quick from a cheap Bic lighter

the cigarette dangles tantalizingly
between *******-- index and middle

it's a balancing act--
to stay away from the ashes
and to not drop your sustenance

dark red lips slightly parted
nearly purple, but not quite
as if a speeding car halted at an invisible border
the arbitrary line between purple and red

she exhales

the smoke coming out in elongated ohs

once the smoke clears
she is gone

after all,
she was
a hazed out,
high-defying,
hallucinatory,
dream