Red isn't my favorite color, but I look damn good in it. Red was the color of my cheeks whenever I got to thinking about the way people think of me, the flush when I heard someone was talking shit that got my hands shaking and my heart fluttering. Red was the all the sunsets I didn't see because I was chasing after dead-end friendships and girls I didn't know. It was the wine forced into my hand that I didn't drink, the bloodshot eyes from too many late nights spent wondering what I'd done wrong this time.

Red was the anger I couldn't let go of, the rage I've embraced and decided to do something about.

Sometimes I try to piece things together. I think about how I got to where I am at Hollins and when things started going south. I think about the nights I spent furious at myself, but that was just the start. I started deflecting people's feelings and emotions towards me, but that just proved to be a game of denying something we all thought to be even a little bit true. When it came down to it, I wasn't mad at myself, at least not as much as I thought I should be. I was mad at everyone else.

It was something that came easily, and I didn't even pretend to try and push it down. It wasn't just an attitude-- though sometimes it was more so than others-- it was a facet of my personality. It was the Aries in me that got my quick-temper revved up, the tiniest quip or slightest provocation that had me calm one minute and seething the next. It used to upset me, I guess. I always wanted to be a little ray of sunshine for everyone and everything. It didn't matter how I felt, so long as everyone else was content. That changed real quick though. Part of extinguishing the sun was learning and accepting that not everyone deserves to reflect and absorb that light.

I didn't devolve into a flaming mass of impossible-to-placate rage overnight, but between Hell Week (from which there is no return) and the drearily long winter break I spent sweating in Texas, I spent too much time alone getting mad as all get out. I thought over every sideways comment, all the times someone made a point to actively not choose me, and the plain fact that some people just don't understand how deep my feelings run. I screamed and I shook and I sorted through all my feelings but at the end of it I just came up with anger.

I really don't owe it to anyone to explain myself. Sometimes I don't even know what to say. Maybe it's something to do with the new year and buying into the same bullshit that always seems to lose its charm right around the second week of January. Either way I'll get a crease at my brow and a twist to my mouth cause I'm pissed at how I've been treated and I'm done putting up with the same shit I've been dealing with for the past however long. This is my year, and I'll be damned if anyone tries to take it away from me.