Red Ink Rewrites

The page creased, stained with lines

in red, her hand a sharp command.

“Remember,” she said, “the silent signs

buried deep inside this land.”

Her words cut through my folded skin,

like knuckles tapping on a pane.

Before the noise, before the spin,

she marked the cracks inside my brain.

That night her message pulled me near,

a whisper scribbled firm and bright.

The voice that shifted all my fear

into something harder, tight.

I hold the marks, rough and wild,

a scarlet thread beneath my skin,

her pen that rewrote the frightened child,

and made the quiet loud begin.