She wants to see it painted in red. All of her grieving, sorrow, and pain. She wishes that all the mistakes she had made didn’t threaten to devour her with their pointed teeth. All the lies she told are looming like shadows that make her days bleak and her nights lonely. Smiles and laughter are mere illusions in her evanescence.
Tears are so bountiful you could fill the seven seas and then some. No hand holds her nor do any arms take claim to her lovely self. Despair is the flavor on her lips. Blackness and ash cover her face as thick as her eyeliner and make-up. She’s there, on the floor, painting it red with anguish and despondency.
With the knife she traces neat lines that criss-cross over silver scars on her wrists. The tears of blood flow down her arm, drip on her jeans and across her shirt. A knife as sharp as her memories may pierce her skin, but the real and painful truth cuts deeper than all.
She tears at whatever she can find. Her clothes, her hair, her skin. She screams for the end to come, for someone to come and take her away from this horrible place. She wonders why the lightning hasn’t struck or the building fallen in on top of her to end the tears and mad wishes with her bitter end. She doesn’t hear any voice, nor feel hands lifting her high. The only sound in her ears is that of the clock, counting her seconds; adding value to her pain. Warm hands don’t hold her, but the temperature seems to drop as the lies and shadows begin to close in.
Pretty blue eyes begin to dull to a lucid color as the blood on the floor congeals and turns dark. She closes her eyes to try and stop the vertigo. Her breathing becomes soft, despite the rabbit-pace of her heart. Fear is hidden beneath her pale composure. She wants this rabid pain to flee from her heart and find a hole to die in. Perhaps she could die instead.
She wants to rid herself of this burden that is splitting her bones and tearing her muscles. She wants the loneliness, the lies, and the lapses of the past to be burned from her record and never found again.
But, not a man on the earth has love enough to heal her. From the holes in her smoking heart, she knows this. All the earthly love of men will bring is blood on the walls and scars on the wrist.
She raises her hands and offers her hemorrhaging wrists. It’s barely audible, like final breath of a dove. She says, “Take it away.”
Hands. On her face, touching her lips and brushing strands of hair from her blue eyes. They check her pulse and hold tight as she tries to pull away. Bandages white as Christmas snow clothe her cuts. Brash red marks seep into the gauze. She whimpers as they tighten the bandages and lift her high to set her on a pedestal.
And then she’s in His arms. He’s holding her tightly as she is too weak to stand on her own. Her eyes blur and cross as she tries to orient herself, but dizziness conquers her. He sweeps her away in a one, two, three, one two, three that aligns with the soft melody he sings. Together, they step, step, step across a marbled floor and joy gallops like a mustang with freedom riding high on its back. Never has she flown as high as when He lifts her so high she can almost touch the clouds. He raises her higher, higher, and higher until her fingers disappear into the cumulus.
It’s cast into oblivion. Her bones can heal, her muscles may stitch together. Love has stolen away her grief. As she comes back to his arms, he holds her close and kisses her forehead before he takes her hands to shuffle her across the dance floor.
A harmony of mutters and ticks, beeps, and counts to umpteenth numbers provides a background that is all but lost in the chorus of the dance.
Her tears. They vanish with the red cuts on her arms. He twirls her around once, twice, thrice. She spins into His arms and steps with him left and then right. He pulls her close and whispers, “You belong to me.”
She opens her eyes and sees the plain white of a hospital room. She looks to her hands made stubby by bandages. Inside, her heart smiles wide until she feels it might pop. The smile spreads to her lips and she laughs with deep and genuine passion.
