Red Vision

I swallowed my pulse like a lit match,
then grinned through the burn, then learned what it fed
My jaw kept a sermon of insults,
my tongue kept the receipts, every sweet word turned dead
The room looked polite and obedient,
a clean little box for a man to pretend he is led
Then a thought snapped its leash in my skull,
and every soft edge got painted in red
I paced with my hands full of lightning,
no thunder to spend it, no storm overhead
I wanted the world to apologize, to kneel in the dust, to admit what it said
My breath hit the plaster in hard little bursts,
and the air tasted metallic and red
[Chorus] Red vision, bad decision, I swing till the silence gets read
Red vision, teeth grinding, I laugh like a threat in my head
Red vision, fist singing, I hit what I cannot unsaid
Red vision, no mercy, I learn what a wall has bled
I keep a clean face for the public, then rot in the closet where anger gets bred
I keep my pain ironed and folded,
then throw it like knives when I want to be fed
You call it a temper,
I call it a hunger that crawls through my ribs like it wants to be fed
I snap at the gentlest friction, a dishcloth, a doorframe, a sentence misread
I’m not built for patience, I’m built for eruption,
a furnace dressed up in a coat
My knuckles talk louder than reason, my teeth grind a rhythm my therapist wrote
[Chorus] Red vision, bad decision, I swing till the silence gets read
Red vision, teeth grinding, I laugh like a threat in my head
Red vision, fist singing, I hit what I cannot unsaid
Red vision, no mercy, I learn what a wall has bled
I punched a hole through the bathroom mirror once just to prove that my reflection wouldn’t flinch
I taped my hand up and told the story like a joke,
but every knuckle kept the score my pride never read
[Chorus] Red vision, bad decision, I swing till the silence gets read
Red vision, teeth grinding, I laugh like a threat in my head
Red vision, fist singing, I hit what I cannot unsaid
Red vision, no mercy, I learn what a wall has bled
When the rage finally breaks into quiet,
it doesn’t feel holy, it feels like a shed
A snake skin of ego on carpet, a stupid old suit I kept wearing for cred
I stare at my hand, at the tremor,
at proof that I’m human, not righteous, not dead
Then I wrap it and walk out still seething, still hungry, still seeing it red