The Color of Blood

by Mona Kabbani

If the torture of never being able to truly know, to accurately express oneself, drives one to create.”

I am a blank canvas. A nothing person. A void that can be decorated and designed but never filled.

I wish I could tell her all the ways her mere existence destroys and rebuilds every cell of my being. The foundation I’ve erected my life upon. How she sets my soul on fire.

She sticks her tongue out and I ponder how much pressure it would take to bite the muscle off. If I could use her own teeth as a paper cutter. To truly feel her tongue against mine could I swallow it whole? Would I? How would it feel to consume a piece of her?

And the thought passes me so sweetly amidst this world-shattering violence: If I am a void, then she is utter totality.

I hope I am not forgotten. I hope my art bleeds through these tarps and stains my floors. I hope Zahra’s color becomes a permanent installation. I hope I bleed into her and she into me. I hope we can combine to create something cataclysmic.

I would recognize you by your laugh, your smell, the way you breathe, and even if I’d lost all sense of sight I’d know you by the rhythm your footsteps make to accompany the music your existence creates in my head. I know you and I have loved you not by the absence of your flaws but by the presence of your darkness.

I know you like paint knows a canvas, like the waves know the shore. I know you like my wounds know heat and the sun knows the sky, and I especially know you by your color—”

Love is not difficult. It should not hurt. But like alcohol, when you drink the right amount of poison, it can feel deceivingly good.