"Sanguine"

Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Guise of death all draped in red
The sight I saw is in my head
But now I can only wait...
To except my death...
Tis' the only fate... I have gleaned...
From the ones who have seen. sanguine.
I wish I knew what to tell you
The few of you who choose this tale to view
But what I tell you, I tell you true...
From victims past I've seen visions... scarlet haze...
All screams and pain and fire... a deadly, bleeding maze.
Each one began with a cut. A small, simple thing, to cut a hand...
One does not think what a simple thing could summon, could attract...
But how could they, indeed? Only one who has seen what I have seen would know, and nothing in between...
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
A boy in the civil war with an amputated hand.
He soaks it in the river with gunfire behind, only pain and survival in his mind...
Then, in the river's reflection he sees. and screams in fear...
For sanguine is seen. Very near. Tick.
He looks to his right where the reflectee should be... only to find a weeping tree.
Whether or not inside his head; the boy swears to me that, like his hand, this tree bled.
Right now this boy, he warns me. He died from blood loss decades previously; yet today he warns me. Tock.
His scarlet cries rip at my soul and beg release. His anguish will never cease...
A black man with a bleeding nail, washing it inside a pail.
He curses and swishes the water back and forth.
Inside my mind he says to run, but I feel warm, I feel...like...like one...
He tells me that within the pail... was a wraith from hell. a wraith of which he cannot possibly re-tell. Tick.
Above his dark face in reflection it leered, doing nothing...and causing fear.
This black man inside me now screams. He bled to death in scarlet dreams. Tock.
Now I see myself ten minutes ago
Shaving quickly; I was on the go.
A razor slipped; I nicked my hand.
The water faucet runs and runs.
Wissshhhhh.
The sound hurts me now.
WISHHHH.
Grating. Grating.
The boy amputee, the black man with bleeding nail and infernal pail...
Yelling...
AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
But in the mirror... the past me did look to see...
A passive figure draped from toe to head...sopping, oozing, pulsing in red.
Now pushing away...the yells inside my head...
They scream, they burn, they yell and yell.
No! DON'T GO! 
I ignore them. I want to go. Oh...oh...
The past me looks to his right in surprised fright, only to see a bathroom light.
...Bleeding...and glowing a soft... pink light....
Their tortured voices are louder now...
I would silence them forever should I know how...
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Of course. I am running out of time...
Now I see what I must do. I must go. I must be with you...

Drifting...
...................
I see myself...
In a puddle of....
...Red...
...RED!..
No...
Get out!!! Tick.
GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!


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Tock...............................
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