Unfamiliar Read

by Jessica Klein

I read. I have read. I look fine in red. My financials say, “In the red” in a tape loop inside my head.

Once a month, I despise the off-color red which seeps into a huge ass pad in my panties. My face blushes a burning red with embarrassment. Red signals a driver to stop, or that somebody’s guts have fallen out. “Emergency, please.”

When the Old Fart Winter lands bitter and remains cold, every exposed part of my body turns red, and it yells and whimpers until I say aloud, “Off with this limb!” I burn for the first time in the sun, and then I repeat the burn upon the tan until my skin screeches while my hair turns a whitish blonde.

Red lipstick with smokey eyes brings the horny boys to my doorstep. My image evokes the envy of every woman and many men of a particular taste.

A deeply embedded red tells our love stories and feeds our rage. Red, to this day, serves as a barrier between the audience and the drama.

Red signals a driver to stop. Red grabs the eye, which pleases some and warns others.

One more look around the bloody pole, and I see hearts hacked up into black bits of hatred.

Some very thick, sick rats spun around once and collapsed. Dead, a hue of mauve blood accompanied by the Carnival Movement’s schizo-blitzo tunes annihilated the scene. The streets groaned with an industrial ache. Death grinned while she poured a red garnet river down the middle of them.

The people pretended not to care, and neither did the blood.