Red and Grey

There's always so much to say, but so many things break. Words make no sense or my mouth doesn't work. Sometimes I forget and sometimes I remember. Sometimes I'm numb and sometimes I hurt. There's never any in between - I feel it all or nothing at all. I'm either bright red, bleeding into my mind, or I'm the floating grey of passing clouds - a subtle storm in hiding. Nobody sees the grey, but they think they see the red. But what I show is purple. I show the tidied version of my inner storm, of the bleeding red. Subdued. Like I learned. But the red is hard to subdue. Sometimes I break and it seeps through. People see glimpses of my red, in my eyes, or mouth, or the way my hands move. But I catch it. I shoot it down, a bleeding bird. Because red belongs to itself. I'm a stop sign, a sunset, a siren, I'm the spark. I light the way, or I cloud the path. People need me or loath me. I'm wanted or hated. I'm alive or dead. What will I be next?