Red Art

Woe, but of course the muzzle isn’t meant to keep you from biting, it’s that tickle in your throat that makes your heart stammer in your chest as you clamp your hands over your mouth; you wouldn’t want to hear your own voice. So creaky and hoarse are you, trembling on your knees, covering your face, choking up as you try desperately not to make a sound. You’re alone in this house of mirrors. Dried, crusted blood across your face, falling off in flakes on your palm as you rub your forehead. And there comes the prickle in your nose and there comes the tears, streaming down your cheeks to wash away the clotted blood on your fur. Crying feels nice but it feels awful. Woe, the melancholy tone of blue and shifting thoughts through a loose stream of consciousness as they all spill out of your head and onto the floor with a wet slap, for everyone to see and breeze past, with their eyes glazed over as they repeat time and time again that they are your friend and that they don’t want to talk to you and they don’t want to talk to you and they don’t think about you and they don’t want to talk to you and they’ll get over your death in less than a month but still be surprised that you took it that far. The smell of salt overtakes the dimmed smell of copper as you wrap your paws around your face, feeling around the wound. But of course the muzzle isn’t meant to keep you from biting. You can’t speak. Your ears are ringing, you're losing your touch, if you ever had a touch, you can’t touch anything, your paws just phase through, you observe, you do not interact, you do not talk, you’re scary, you freak people out, you look like you burn churches, you wear too many spikes. It’s been five years in a row that no one invited you to their birthday parties, it’s been seven-teen years and no one’s invited you to hang out. You aren’t worth the fucking time. As you lie there, curled up on the cold ground, listening to the thudding of your disgusting heart scream in your chest, you hear a squeak escape your lips and you limp in your thoughts of how everyone will forget. Everything hurts. Everything feels bad. My head hurts. My throat hurts. My eyes sting. I can’t speak. I know that there’s other people. Past the mirrors. Their chipper, muffled voices hurt my head. When I try to send them a message they only cheer louder. You cry silently, in the dark. No one can hear.