Red on White

Weeping white willow leaves dress me

Like the lingering touch of a lover

All soft and hesitant to hurt

Wrapping my body in silky panache green

And silently, I thought, I was going to live.

The turbulence wasn't forecasted

Storm clouds on a sunny day

And when they came, they came in hordes

Quelling the cries of my family

Until bodies lay in the once white flowers

Now splashed red and stamped into the dirt.

I beg the wind to take me away,

Down to the moonlit lakes

Still shining silvery blue, white moon still smiling

Even as I glow red against the night.

I wash in the waves hoping to purge the red

Submerged in the cold until my breath runs away

But it stays. It spreads. I'm drowning

Every atom in my body knowing, accepting

That I will die regardless.