Do You Want to See Red?
Do you want to see red?
I don’t mean the red of blood
That’s too easy,
An obvious sort of red.
Now you think about
Colors of the autumn sky
Those lovely streaks,
Cardinals taking flight
Like the swoop of an artist’s paintbrush.
But that’s really not red.
At least not the thick, stubborn color
I am talking about.
At most it’s a frail, light salmon hue
Made of sleepy dreams and homecoming.
Are you thinking about poppies now?
Or the listless roses,
Waiting for the touch of lovers
To find their short, blooming lives worthy?
I don’t want to show you
The red made of love, of seasons, of life
And yet it is borne exactly out of all these things.
I want to show you —
The color before the cliff turns into a jump
Into the misty abyss
The color before the shape of innocence is broken
Into quiet, raging shards
The color before the howl of love shrieks
Into the cave where nobody lives.
It’s the color that bleaches the bone
Unclean.
Staying right there, without showing itself.
A bouquet of invisible blades and thorns.
A bad lullaby going on in the hush hush world.
Do you really want to see?
© Kaustabh Kashyap
