The Red Crayon

I haven't seen democracy since I was four years old, 

coloring with crayons outside the lines while a man on screen was coloring the map with too much red that the blue was overpowered. 

The expression my mom wore that day was the same as the next day, and next and after and before:

Tight lips pressed into a fine line as if opening them would start the ticking bomb.

My grandmother's pen is my mom's enemy

It is the one who wrote down a red name in her careful handwriting and outcasted my family in 

one. 

fell.

swoop!

Afterwards, I was terrified

for no apparent reason other than the countless news articles I was accustomed to;

the nightmares about death so vivid I realized it was the reality

that caused my enemy to be my voice.