Not Crimson
A political religion.
Red.
Born in Scotland, you travel for the first time in your life, to your country of origin: China--
Where a revolution has begun.
Students dressed in red now have absolute authority in our communities. The uneducated. The inexperienced. We were of the same skin, same race, but their clothing classified them as superior figures.
You are not red. You have read books but aren’t allowed to anymore. The teachers are covered in red--
Blood. The intellectuals were punished. If you were not dressed in red, you were not human.
Every morning we read the quotes of Mao Zedong, his biblical enlightenment. Everything was red.
A religion of red. If you don’t carefully tread, and allow ideas to escape your head, allow them to be said, then you’re as good as dead. To lower your head, to be lead in red, all in order to live on bread and to lay on a bed.
We were all the same--
Yet different. A peer and an outsider. You want to be like them. Fit in with the group, not ostracized, but are conflicted by the values that the majority hold. Why was everything so complicated. Why was everything so convoluted. Why did everyone act that way.
You were picked on, bullied, targeted, hurt, outcasted. The red flashes in vivid gashes on you, on the teachers, in your mind.
You want it to stop, don’t understand why the others think the way they do, don’t understand why the teachers were being hurt when they were the ones who offered aid and guidance.
You want to fit in, but hesitate.
Why is it always red. Not crimson, but red.