2/30

Let me tell you about the color red.

My best friend from the Rowe Center hated wearing red. I thought she looked fantastic, the one time she wore it, a red t-shirt, while she worked her dish-washing shift.
She admitted she only wore that shirt because it was her turn to ruin clothing, so she choose that one.
For a moment I could've taken her for a fellow Devils fan. She supports the Kings.
The Kings beat the Devils in the 2012 Stanley Cup Final.

My house mate and good friend wears a red shirt to work. I think she looks
stunning, golden hair laid upon velvet.
She hates her job. It hated her first. Hated the people it was supposed to help, her job wants her dead.
She swears she's dead inside.

Her blue eyes glinting in her smile states otherwise.

The color red circles her computer screen after another heart murdering day. Her Guild Wars character is about to die, her own blood has her surrounded more than the enemies she's trying to fight,
Fellow gamer's no where in sight, scattered through the fictional world like team work is a virtue lost to the rising tides in real life.

A red badge displays one word- POET.
My windows' clavicle bares this like a medal,
or memento,
or a memorial,
or a reminder or a trail blaze to a path thorny and overgrown, un-traversed,
or a blood moon pushing apart clouds like it rose with the sun,
with us,
Once was enough, this much shared with Mindy from New Jersey,
Clouds parted that rainy morning just long enough
for us to reconcile as friends.
Mindy plays guitar, I'm still learning after all this time,

First steps tend to be the hardest.
All I need is a lesson. It'd be so easy
to just phone call an eager tutor fifty dollars.
The last time I did that it was fifty dollars a week
for three months.
                          I played my piano keyed
teeth only to recognize the demolition that needed to happen
they were so rotten.
Yet this teacher spent far more time on me than he should've, or needed
or I deserved,
he spent more time than I spent actually doing the work,
and I have not yet repaid him for his priceless gift.

I started on the work eventually, for real, alone, months if not years later.
What do I have to show him or say to, for, myself
that won't ooze from gums unable to close.
A person can guess what this discharged bacteria might look like,
it isn't red. It's not even purple, my lips
are so sickly pink it stands out like a mask
on my blotchy face,
                             Illness
                   Poison. Admission.
My hands, calloused
Nerves blunted overshaven, repetitive motions in professional
kitchens.

Heat doesn't bother my palms anymore.
My house mate and good friend in her red work shirt
called me out for not using a pot holder, her eyebrows raised in concern
and exasperation, half playful, half sighing,
as I retrieve a plate of perogies melting in the microwave for her.
I set it down and my fingers blushed for hours
like they might blister,
It faded like it was pretending.
Heat meant to do that. Yes it did
do that.

The warmth each morning
is real, I feel it at 7 AM when she's just waking up.
I place two slices of bread in the toaster oven. Cut up banana. Spread peanut butter
on the rough edges when the timer dings.
I love making her breakfast.
It's not that I'm in love with her, though I am.
Rather, for the first time, I found meaning, in a life she and I both lacked
a vision for love, for family,
lacked parents who listened when we told them they were hurting us,
with neglect, with words, with erasure, with fists, with shouts, with trespass, with crowbars,
with handle-less doors, removed when we locked them to keep out the body snatchers.

Who cared, exactly?
She does. I do. A little too much, we both retreat when the word family
becomes a little too real, the loss too empty, a hole  we can't avoid or close
our eyes, there is nothing that can fill an entire life time of scorching raised
by earth by means of chasm
We
     cannot touch. Just listen, across the distance we can't close.
Yes. I will cook her breakfast, see her fed, these mornings are all I ever wanted,
this connection,
this tables glossy surface bounces the echos we don't realize is Morse code tapped like anxiety attacks.
She listened to all my panicked messages sent under the influence of
please don't hate me.
Managed to not hate me for them.

Don't hate me, stop the wagon I wanna get back on,
I just want to take care of her.
I just wanted a family,
for cleaning dishes to not induce vomiting,
For cooking to be a gut reaction to love instead of dominance and profit
and brainwashing,
For someone to listen.
To care.

There is no way we can get this back.
The family we didn't have. The blood that had us surrounded by walls and handle-less doors.
Nothing can replace what should've taught us what love looked like.

It's taking time, but for the first time,
We're learning.

Let me tell you about the color red.