Read my latest flash, Venison, at 52|250.

Color Code

as if her eyes were blue
blue water runs across her skin
she takes her pills from her washstand
to de-edge pain that’s never blue

and only in a clotted way red
red as the scale end where she names her pain
she takes the bottle from the pills
leaving two in her hand turned red

from the boiling water in green
green rubber her mom knitted a sweater
she takes an extra dose every twenty-four hours
or she’d never see anything moonlit or green

only the walls so white
white as dirt and mildew let them
judge her medication, swears its only Ibuprofen
swallows the pill of sucrose & white

---

written in response to read write prompt #106: repeat after me and while waiting for my partner to arrive after his flight was delayed (technically it’s Thursday here)

Two Rooms

two beds: neither belonging
 to the people in them
    rented for a night, for a year
cleaned sheets but stained
 or could use a wash
this week it's been a year

  since she left
that first white bed
   and rain soaked through her hair
   and the blue coat
she forgot (how) to button

two beds now
this one so small
they can't both fit on it
    other so big
she couldn't get out of it
away from it
             that other him
with thicker arms & crueler wrists

            it's raining now
she hears it
she recalls
             but leaves her blue coat
         hanging by metal on the red door
she doesn't need it
 in these new arms
  new greenbrown eyes
   new darkdark hair
she's loved inside

---

written in response to read write prompt #99: setting the scene