Red
She had painted the room.
Like her cheeks would flush
in the cold, or like the
color of her favorite scarf.
Her lipstick still stained
on his coffee mug.
The mug washed clean,
the scarf returned,
her cheeks no longer his.
But the walls—
the walls remained,
as blatant as a
hippopotamus
rising from the mud
under an African sun.
Clay dripping
from its mighty legs
like drops of
nail polish on the sheets
of a once-shared bed.
She had painted the room.
White paint could not conceal it
or erase it like liquid paper,
correcting all the times
she wrote “I love you”
and didn't mean it.
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