Stains of wine.
The stain isn’t real. It can’t be. But then why does it spread? Why does it crawl, dark and red, from the crease of my palm, winding its way through my veins like ivy, thick and suffocating? I wash my hands until the skin screams, rub until the surface peels back, exposing what lies beneath— but it never goes away. It started as a smudge, faint, almost invisible, like a sin half-whispered into the night. I thought it would disappear if I ignored it. I thought it was nothing. But nothing doesn’t cling to you like this, doesn’t pulse beneath the surface, hot and alive. Nothing doesn’t whisper. “You’re marked,” it says. “You can’t hide.” I press my hands against my chest, fingers trembling, trying to choke the words out of me. But the stain is there too, spreading across my ribs, licking at my throat. It’s warm. It’s too warm. It feels like the weight of another body, heavy and insistent, pressing against mine in ways I’ve tried so hard to forget. Or maybe... maybe I didn’t want to...