Red.
It’s not pretty on me.
Not lipstick.
Not Valentines hearts.
Not cute red sweaters or “you’re so strong compliments.”

My red is the kind that stains.
That sticks.
That screams when I try to whisper.
Red is the colour of being left.
Not once.
But over and over and over.

My mum?
Yeah, my bio mum.
She left like I was a book she stopped
reading halfway through.
But she still sends postcards.
Like that makes it better.
Like writing, “Love, Mum” at the end
wipes away the years that she wasn’t there
to love me at all.

Do you know what it feels like
to get a message from a ghost
trying to pretend she’s still real?

I don’t read them anymore.
I just stare at the handwriting and
feel nothing.
Or maybe too much.
I can’t tell the difference anymore.

Red is the rage I swallow
because screaming makes people
uncomfortable.
Because no one wants to hear
about the kid sent to boarding school at 11
like an inconvenience.
Shipped off.
Silenced.
Discarded.

Dad didn’t even fight.
Just handed me over
to a woman who never saw me as hers
and made sure I knew it.

Red is the silence between us now.
And it’s loud.
So loud it drowns out the sound of me breaking.

But the worst red?
The darkest?

Wasn’t just what they did.
It was what they took.
Two men.
People I trusted.
People who smiled at me like I mattered
before they ruined me.

I said no.
I said stop.
But they didn’t hear me—
because they weren’t listening.
They were taking.

And one of them carved a word
into my skin.
A word I won’t repeat.
Because it’s still there.
Because when I shower, I still trace it.
Like it might come off this time.
It never does.

Red is that word.
That memory.
That version of me
that I don’t know how to bring back.
Sometimes I look in the mirror
and all I see is what they left behind.

I’m still here.
Yeah.
Breathing.
Just barely.

But I think about giving it all up.
More than I say out loud.
More than anyone would guess
by the way I smile in hallways
and laugh when I’m dying inside.

Red is the part of me that wants to vanish.
That writes poems
because if I don’t put it on the page,
I might not survive the weight.

Red is major depression.  
C-PTSD.
It’s waking me up and wondering why.
Why me.
Why still.
Why now.

It’s wanting someone to hold me and mean it.
Wanting my mum to show up
in something more than postage stamps and pretend love.
Wanting my dad to say,
“I was wrong. I should’ve kept you close.”
But knowing they won’t.
Knowing they didn’t.

Red is the truth no one wants to hear.
The pain they skip over in movies.
The girl in the back of the class
with scars on her heart and skin
who’s just trying to get through the day
without breaking apart in front of everyone.

Red is me.
All of me.
Hurting.
But still breathing.
Still here.

Not because I'm strong.
Not because I want to be.
But because even though everything in me says give up,
some tiny voice
buried under the rubble
still whispers:
Wait.

An evil mother, with grey hair
Flaunts her red gown
Desiring, her selfish,
wild daughters
to get royally crowned

After a painful death
Her real hidden face
Once cunningly cloaked
Is finally invoked!
She was a sugar coated pill!

Soon the dishes and the laundry
The sweeping of floors
Are forever those
stepdaughter's daily chores

The clever lady, never gaiety
gets the royal call
She plans devilish things
Locking Cindrella down
Wildly tearing and ruining
Her charming ball gown

In the end, she's left cursing
the perfectly fitting shoe
She deserved that
Old cruel shrew!

But why is it always
The step ones forever cruel?
Why O why? Is such a mother shown?
What would a child feel
Who has a mother, step
Even, if she isn't mean or vain
The child will think, she's Lady Tremaine!

My evil stepmother and I became lovers and we killed my dad.
We did it so that we could get all of the money that he had.
We were greedy and we made sure that Dad would Rest in Peace.
But we made a fundamental mistake, we underestimated the police.

I pushed Dad off the roof and tried to make it look like he accidentally fell.
But the police didn't buy it and now my stepmother and I are rotting in jail.
The cops figured out that my stepmother and I were lovers.
They used their ingenuity to make us turn on one another.

Now as I sit in my cell, I feel pretty bad.
I feel like a piece of trash for killing Dad.
Dad had over a hundred million dollars but in the end, it did me no good.
If I could travel back in time to stop myself from killing my father, I would.

i wonder what your reaction would be
if you really knew
if you really truly knew
i wonder if you would be closer to me
or further away
would she bring us closer
or tear us apart
maybe i don’t tell you
because deep down i already know
maybe i already know what would happen
but it doesn’t matter anymore anyways
its too late
she’s already here
under this roof
in my moms room
on my moms deck
drinking from my moms mugs
sitting on my moms chair
theres nothing i can do
but wallow
and have self pity
but of course that doesn’t help anyone
except maybe give me a bit of release
but at the same time i feel like I’m a guest
in my own house
i don’t feel like this is a home anymore
i feel like i don’t have a home
i don’t feel that i am at home for the summer months
i feel as though
i am visiting
and you are patiently
or impatiently
waiting for me to leave in september
i feel like a burden
but at the same time
i am the only one who cares about anything
and you wonder why i cry
every night
and refuse to talk about it with you
how can i
when the person who makes me cry
is the person you put infront of me
what would you say
if i told you
the one tearing your daughter down
is the one person you give everything to

I don’t even want to know how she built it
But my new stepmother
Is wearing
Something made out of bones
It starts as a choker, thick and resting below her chin
It snakes down to cover her like a halter top would
Well, more like a scarf
Because it covers her ******* and leaves the heart exposed
Then it keeps going down, down
And drops off around her thighs
Long thin bones loop around her shoulder like strings, a tie
And is covered by a fur coat
Draped around her
As if it’s doing any good against November’s wrath.
My new stepmother
Never was afraid of intimidation.
Intimidation is afraid of her.
And, somehow, I’m not afraid of anything anymore.

i know that you watch t.v.
all the time to drown out
the sound of your pain
but can you please see me?
just ask how i'm doing?
this house is not a home
and you're one of the reasons

I don't understand anymore why my mother acts the way she does. She is a ***** who doesn't care about anyone but herself. If she doesn't like something, it doesn't happen. She hates my father and his girlfriend. I call my father's girlfriend my stepmother because it's easier than explaining that their not married nor do they plan to (6 years and counting.) She screamed at me for hours telling me that she's not my stepmother (I cried myself to sleep). I say it for convenience. My mother's a total *****, but I wonder if that's hereditary.

If I only had a daughter
I would pass along to her
All the things I've learned in life
The things that are and those that were

I would try to smooth her way
When everything was getting rough
Still, to have me for her mother
Might be handicap enough

1999