We have rehearsed our hate; practiced our violence
We have studied our pain; repeated our trauma
We have neglected love; emotional abstention
Let fester pulsing wounds growing on our skin
We would endure hell just for the slightest chance
To feel closure, to feel something else

The tears do not help and time is too slow
We cannot wait for these wounds to heal

The time between stars is insignificant
Against the time for the hurt to wane
No silence greater than the enraging howl
In the space between trauma

We have rehearsed our hate; practiced our violence
We have studied our pain and repeated our trauma
Look at each other and see a mirror
Loathe the image reflected back to us

Seeing red
Breathing red
Eating red
Breeding red

So tired of the throbbing pain
Begging for any release
Exhaustion that hurts—sleep without rest
Our eyes never stay shut

Across the earth and in the trails of blood
We circle each other smelling the scent
The scent of our hate, the stench of our lust
The end of our pain, the end of our hunt

Seeing red
Breathing red
Eating red
Breeding red

Crying in red
Mourning in red
Drowning in red
Nothing but red
All that we see and all that we feel
Blood rolls down our skin

Such expansive shame
Incredibly vast our guilt

We’ve auditioned this moment
For the day our bodies enact it
Muscles trained well to take and take and take
There should be no hesitation

Do we deserve this, deserve this ache
Have we earned this, this longing pain

Despite the shame, in spite of the harm
We demand justice for things we would have done
Despite knowing why, in spite of seeing clear
We hate what we see because we see ourselves

And still we fight though we are much the same
A bulwark of guilt built with shaking hands
Through tears and screams, we lament what we lost
Losing much faster than we could ever heal

We cannot suffer this pain forever
Taking breaths of blood underwater
We’ve violated much, so what’s a little more
We’ve hurt them so much, so what’s a little more

We cannot wait for these wounds to heal
We must learn to live with what we have done
We cannot forgive, but maybe we can accept
We must learn to live with what we have done