The Girl in the Red Dress

Never again.

Never again will she don the black dress her mother gave her, the dress her mother wore when she first met her father.

The one she yearned to fit as a child, dreamed of snaring eyes and turning heads in one day. The dress that, whenever she snuck into her parents' room and crept over to the closet, seemed to shine as though bathed in God's grace, with angels singing their holy praises as the doors swung open like the pearly gates of forever and revealed paradise, this masterpiece without rival.

It hung there, alone at the center of the closet. At the center of her world.

But now, after walking home on a wrong night, after standing under the wrong lamp post, after wear the wrong dress that sent the wrong message, those gates have slammed shut, and avoid now takes a space once of grandiose holiness, an opening to oblivion. The gates that once opened willing for her now forbid her entrance, spellbound shut by incantations of grief and despair, taped off by taboo and walled in by an impenetrable barrier of unjust guilt.

Guilt that weighs on her shoulders like she bears a sign that reads "Free Piggyback Rides" and the elephant in the room took her up on her offer. Guilt that preys upon the weak like it's a job like it's going for the employee of the year: working every day of the year, holidays and weekends, 9 to 5 and overtime.

Once upon a time, she was bold. An uncheckable spirit that knew no bounds, quelled all fear and opposition. Her favorite color was black because it made her look sleek and angelic, just like everyone told her she was.

She wears a lot of red now. She figures it's safer that way