"Little Red" Part One

the beginning of a new story...

“Little Red” he called her at the beginning, although as time passed he simply called her “Red”. Red like her lips when she bit them, her cape, and the colour she tinted when he said her name. He had courted her gently at first, showing up at the house from time to time with small gifts. His hair slicked back, his beard trimmed, that grey suit she loved freshly pressed. He left the gifts on her window sill outside her bedroom; apples, berries, cigarettes she had to hide from her mother, fake flowers dipped in LSD “to show you the world off the path you follow”. She felt dizzy when she thought of him.

They moved in to a studio apartment at the top of a high rise building. Her mother had found the cigarettes and accused her of being a junkie: his arms were strong and he held her to his chest late at night when she thought she was dying. He bathed her with a sponge that looked like a flower from the woods near her grandmothers house. She'd stopped visiting her family. Her grandma was old and dull and he said “She's bad for you. She won't let you be free.” Sometimes she still baked scones and biscuits and thought about sending them in the post but they never had money for stamps and he almost always caught her, “These are for you” she'd whimper “I made them for you of course.”

Red like the blood on her cheeks, the colour of his eyes mid-argument, her fear, her loneliness.
“I only need you” she echoed when he threatened to leave her and send her home to her mother. Her words reverberated through to the tip of her little red hood.

His beard had grown long and unruly, and scratched her leaving a rash when he made love to her. When she looked at him she saw glaring eyes and sharp teeth. “My,” she said with a sigh. “What big teeth you have.” He laughed. “All the better to eat you with.” The laugh roared around their apartment and she felt his teeth on her neck and hand creep across the small of her back. Fingernails felt like claws. “OUCH!” She said. He apologised and kissed her softly on her forehead.
“I was only trying to- I just wanted to make you feel good.”

A long pause that ends with an awkward cough and a kiss. She leaves the room.

This man.
This man.
I think he moves earth
when he speaks
leaves indents
with a sigh

(tonight, i am that anti-love the world cries over/i've seen that movie it ends in rom-com disaster we read The Book- or i didn't i was busy that night- i imagine- that Devil character screws things up, but She probably means well, she is probably flawed, Ugly, she probably doesn't know everything even if she pretends to with a nervous, vain, smile.)

I think his hurt
envelops me
with a rough tounge (ha ha ha)
edges me shut.

This man.
This man
holds me
[i am a pinprick
in your giant palm]
set to throw
or crush,
but nay, he holds me
tender.
These are the palms
of a man
i see as
a God.

This man.
This man

i Love.

i think 'you hate yourself' and i shake my head or i shake it on the inside and fight every urge not to shake You/fight you/claw at your eyes/your opinions- reason with you.
in there where i am not tight lipped i lift you up (inside my head with the shaking, i am very, very strong and you are a feather) and take you in to a mirrored room, the ceilings, the floor, the walls glaring at you so i forget which you i touch.
i point "see this. this i love. this is beautiful." i say, "in my hands i hold a pot of paint. i will make a mark on each part i am completely taken by, on each bit of you i adore and lust for." i whisper "on each part i would eat, if i could." i pick up the paint brush and draw an x where your heart lies. i pour the paint over your body. the room fills with paint : you are covered completely i can barely find you under all of it, and you can't see because the paint is clogging up your eyeballs and you can't breathe because it is filling up your mouth your lungs. "These are the parts i love." I say but you can not hear me, your ears have filled with the paint and your insides are revolting as the paint intertwines with your blood.