Words: Ava Scott-Nadal she/her
I am a romantic. I feed off of attraction, lust, the days before you know each other, the days when you do, the days that are filled with long pauses and restless nights. I pray for days soaked in crimson.
If lust is rose-tinted, love is a deep, dark, scarlet that fills the room. It consumes you, you breathe it, you feel it, you hold it. In times of loneliness, the burned memory of red on your brain warms your mind and caresses you to sleep.
I propel myself with my heart, I let my life be full of gentle whispers and soft words, I crave intimacy and surreal reality, in wine-soaked evenings and vermilion sunsets we talk of everything and nothing. Our lives are now our own, our old ones ending and we are so glad.
“I don’t want to go back to the real world, I want to stay here.” Fingers intertwined on crushed sheets, we gaze out of the window.
Blood red lace intertwining fingers.
Pining is blood red. It consumes you, it pulses through your veins so loud you can hear your heartbeat in your ears. It flushes out your cheeks, it stutters your words, it moistens your hands. It coaxes you in your sleep to fantasise, imagine, to privilege desire until it consumes your brain like a hot, heavy blanket.
Pining is addicting. When just out of reach, the mere thought is cerebrally burning, even coming close to it feels like standing in a building, ablaze. Ignoring the thought makes the fire grow and the smoke comes through into your consciousness. You breathe, but it’s inescapable. Cheeks grow warmer, face grows redder…and yet I stay, trapped in this little bubble of thought that feels so much more intense than its size.
You want to be loved, don’t you?
I pine for our made-up little world again tonight.
