The Red Lady

The sunlight fades on stained linen bed-sheets; 
the red lady wakes to start her day. She checks her phone - 
it has rung a thousand times in the daylight hours 
but nobody ever seems to be calling. She views herself in 
the wardrobe mirror; the image of a martyr but she's not  
ready to die. She recalls a teenage dream - 
she was the chosen one but she doesn't seem to care. 
A broken heart is a good head start, but the red lady 
remains unpainted and a fire of the lungs is 
slowly asphyxiating her. She's been blind for half her 
life - daylight hours have always been a mystery and 
the nightlife holds the key to eternal life. 
 
The moonlight rises over a gruesome gallery; 
the red lady hangs from a wall – her limbs are 
twitching and the blood flows down her legs. 
She's done for now, but she'll wake to the sunrise 
for the first time – she's not sentimental but she'll hold 
onto the hanging rope until the end of time. The red lady 
whimpers in your ear – her love will always be true – if  
that's what you truly believe. You shouldn’t listen to artwork, 
the red lady – the clockwork lover – is hanging there forevermore.  
Her dignity is gone; she's living in a place where everyone judges 
personal fire, she tells you she's free while the fire burns. You drink 
until she's hanging from the wall again. 
 
The passing of days makes no sense to the red lady; her time passes 
slowly as the people around her disintegrate. That's not the way to live a 
life, that's no reason to masturbate. But she writes her online profile in desperation – 
a picture of innocence and the twenty-first century.  She is mindful and sober and 
happy - or so the internet says. The red lady fills her life with the success she isn't 
willing to obtain and nobody will ever get close enough to see the truth. The sound 
of cicadas ring as she wakes, an artwork in gold and crimson and white and the 
colour of self-abuse. An expert in pink and green; she's offensive and she takes offence 
from everyone who takes offence, it's an accident. The red lady gets no responses and  
her resolve fades, but people still pay to gain entry. There's no need to worry 
about getting old, nobody will be able to tell. The humble lady is portrayed in 
blood and canvas and nobody will recognise her now.