Crimson Tides

“Nah, that’s not good enough,” she chided.

“What are you talking about?!”

“You’re TRYING to look happy, but I see it in your eyes… you’re not you today,” she almost whispered.

“It’s the season. You know I get weird in the winter.”

I had to get out of there. I don’t mind my “friends” checking in on me, but some of them get too close and those are the ones that end up dead. This girl is too sweet to end up like the others. I finished my coffee and made an excuse to leave the coffeehouse and get back to my day alone. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be spending the day with someone I might tear to shreds by evening.

Once I got older, I thought I would get beyond it and I would see the error in my ways, but the hunger has just gotten worse. The hunger to see the life trickle from a person’s eyes in the form of a tear is not only moving, but almost… poetic. The fear, the sorrow, the acceptance in one’s eyes as they realize their life is over and they are ready to begin the next journey is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

But the art of it all…. the art comes when my strength gathers and I rip their lifeless bodies limb from limb and watch as that beautiful, crimson blood pours out onto the canvas known as Earth. The puddles and spatter, I leave untouched. I let it fall where it may. That is the freedom of this art. The limbs I arrange skillfully into a sculpture of some sort, but really, the art is in those crimson tides.

Oh, I believe, tonight, tonight the tide is coming in.