In the Red Room by Sandy Benitez

walls are hemorrhaging
beneath layers of fairy wallpaper
skin scratched to the bone.

Panels of blood-red velvet drapes
frame the windows
to the heaven outside.

A young girl sits on the floor,
legs crossed with head turned down.
She is a red rose yet to bloom

in her dress made of paper and scar-tissue.
Scraps of ephemera,
crumbled and thrown in every corner

surround her like a clay pot.
Her tears become sustenance,
feeding her when no one is watching.

Small, pale arms stretch 
towards the Summer sunlight 
resembling climbing ivy unrestrained.

Fingers bled, wrists cut
in a moment of blood-letting
she imagines the color of love.