A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, b1 – between 15 and 30 lines poem.
a portrait of blood
their circle's a splattered canvas of blood ruined ruined ruined and it's supposed to be a beautiful rendering except it's not
it's not real, it's not her and there's not even a mockery to hackle them even though they couldn't have handled that mockery of a tender smile and gentle hands and the warm refrain that's warped so terribly now, warped with red that's a colour and shouldn't even have a sound except it does and its rakes the smooth symphony of her final song and digs out the sadness and desperation and the pain gods the pain
but when the blood spurts out it feels like a quickly quenching fire because blood is water and water puts out fire and everything slips out of him too quickly to hold onto licking flames and it's a shame he's not a tap so he can shut the faucet off and stop this spurting that's taking everything else away as well
painting the circle with blood lots of blood his blood and her blood too that they've made with a clap of their hands like the bell clapper in reverse except the bell clapper can't be rung in reverse and they know this because it's the deeper truth behind their knowledge and power and art and they can't plot a map to make it possible
it's not written in the stars or the earth or their souls and there's not an equation that can be made that will solve...
and there's a circle as pretty and complex and as thorough as they can make it but it wasn't enough and it will never be enough even when the blood runs over it, hiding and rewriting and changing everything so there's a stifling suffocating smell in the air that's not oxygen that they can't breathe and they swoon there instead, swoon in red like a virgin on her wedding sheets except this isn't a dream
there's blood - blood blood blood everywhere splattered on the floor and the walls and their hands and faces and feet and clothes but it's the blood of failure and a massacre and a war and the only pretty foreplay was when those tomatoes were squashed under the weight of falling bodies and pelting feet like an elephant herd runs through a dirt ditch
they've crushed the grave box and it's all in splinters and they can't dig it back out and put it back together even when their palms are torn to shreds and spitting bright red drops of blood that don't add
too much too much bloodbloodblood and it won't stop spurting and splattering and dripping all over everything as if it's not all ready already all messed up
should have been inside a body. should have been inside a body and where's the body, where's anything but the blood? but the blood's coloured everything and that's all that's there because they're babies reduced to babies and babies can't see what's not plain in sight and all there is is blood and what's under blood's not there doesn't exist
just blood and even their circle's gone and there's only a sea of blood.