Flashback Friday — 'Red'

Red

Tonight I feel like the color red.

Bold, passionate, unafraid, wholly myself.

The blood coursing through my arteries, primitive as a drum beat heart beat, thoughts instinctive, both here and not.

Spontaneous creation, desire driven, Freud's Eros, life force.

Rouge lighting, lipstick red, a drawn on smirk, a skin that feels like home.

A body that is mine alone to hold, to adore, and care for as a lover would.

My shadow dipped in maroon, my heart in blossoming vermillion.

When the world cuts, I do not bleed in plasma and erythrocytes.

I bleed in art. I bleed in alizarin crimson, in cadmium on canvas, red that radiates from the paintbrush as from a wound, from my wounds.

Wounds which close with each brushstroke painting on platelets.

And so I heal.

And my red replenishes.

By Mia Wolfe, Silhouette Edition Spring '24