I have bad memories with the color red
Except for an evening at fifteen
When I looked in the mirror, dressed for a wedding
And I loved what I saw
This smiling girl, with short hair
And red ruby earrings

At seventeen I painted my nails red for college
And Daddy made me cut them all
His daughter couldn’t be one of "those" women you know

At eighteen I painted my lips red for a boy, and he
He never showed up
So I cried
Because I hated the color red

And with my cut nails, without lip color
I wrote on my violet walls what wasn’t said
I wrote blasphemous
I wrote of death

Pitifully ironic, so ironic now
What I wrote so pathetically
Was yet in red