Gasps

By Arushi (Aru Shan)

Curtains splattered with blood Those are your clothes now And mine We take off the clothes There's another layer of blood splattered We cut up the next shroud The stains follow underneath How deep does blood soak? We run, run, run Douse the clothes in dreams Burn up in smoky future Bodies curtained in blood Farther you go Farther you find them underneath We tie the garments to hope Anchor makes sure they drown There's blood on our hands It's not ours It's ours It's common Except not of the one we want It makes us disgusted Of our hearts pumping blood We pull the next layer off Like red glue stuck to our souls Stomp on the rags in frustration Eyes sting from tears There's the layer Still the layer Or is it our own skin? Are we a blood curtain? Are we manufacturing our stains? Are they unreal? Hide. Hide. Hide. We put on a layer of dust Humility might help We are soil, And the soil is red There's no escape

The nightmares are red Intrusive flashes red We put on masks Masks drip red Blood rolls Like lizards crawling on the edge of our existence It clings like paralysis to sleep Like pus to infection Like sarcasm to despair We keep breathing and thinking This isn't our colour But you forget And I forget What did we look like before? Eyes are red We didn't exist before this But it surely can't be our skin? You pray, I scream We grow with shackles in our ankles The marks follow We're wearing curtains of red and Even after layering it a thousand times We know We know every second. Self-acceptance, what does it mean? What of us who never had a self? Of us, who forgot Didn't exist before the curtains What of us? We forever push back Push away while clinging and crying inside Who bloodied the curtains We know and it doesn't matter Because we wear the curtains and not them So, red, red, red So red, red, red With a thousand gasps we wake up Every morning.

By Arushi (Aru Shan)