Dusting off the Blood

by A.J. Huffman

Do you love the color
of my hair?
Do you miss it
as it turns?
From red.
                To gold.
                              To black.
You hope for gray.
But that’s not the way I rot.
Conventions --
such as life --
shun me.
I don’t belong in any of their light.
And yet I cannot disappear.
I am the slate of a mistake.
Wash me.
Trace me.
Re-erase me.
I rise again and again.
I am a phoenix of misuse.
I dream of abuse.
Not mine.
It is my desire.
To be the devastation.
Without the fire.
Though this dream too will fade.
In time,
I remain:
a stain. 
Unforgotten.
And the ash in your mind
is my sin.
You will hear it calling.
Long after night
has claimed my skin.