#TBT

Originally published April, 2007

Brought to a complete standstill by a single red light, a light so far up ahead its exact state of emergency unknown. Traffic jam in the dead of night.
With a kink in my schedule and a plan thrown off course, there is blatant disregard for what could be tragedy ahead. The frustration of this sudden state of rest has me seeing red.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview and notice the brake lights ahead have washed me with color. It's quite flattering actually, and I am fabulous.
My mind wanders to a tiny red light district I'd visited once or twice. Filled with human traffic--people coming and going. Or coming, and then going. Street lamps casting light on worldly women with cherry red nails, working girls with blood red lips, dark skinned ladies in red satin. All beautiful and wicked.
It was the kind of world my mother warned me about. My mother with her ruby ring and rose petal perfume and one sided view of just about everything, who could always manage to scratch through my life manifesto with garish red ink. Lessons learned she would say.
But I wanted more. Determined to redline at every given chance to accelerate like some little red corvette. Getting attention with my tiny red tattoo. Talking to strangers as they watched the cherry at the end of  my cigarette burn brighter and brighter.
But that was then. Now I heed the warning when it's red in the morning, after I've been beaten like a red headed stepchild the night before. Stumble to the mirror to rub night crust from bloodshot eyes-to clean red stains from my upper lip and promise to repent for this for the rest of my days, knowing that big red exit sign to the right is the only way out.
Red rover, red rover, send me right over. Over the edge. Ready to go--to motivate--get out of this town. Maybe head someplace insignificant like Reading, PA. Fall in love with a ginger girl with pink cheeks and freckles. Live in a red brick house in the suburbs. Trade in that corvette for a hybrid because I still need to be noticed. Look at how practical and fuel efficient I am in my little red hybrid.  Live happily ever after in that world till the angels wanna wear my red shoes.
So I set this plan in motion. To go anywhere but here and go at high speeds. I hit the highway free and wrapped in the black of night. Completely invisible to the rest of the world. Until the fire engines came whirring by me with their red lights flashing and sirens screaming. But I was determined to match their speed and had no intention of making way, until just ahead 100 brake lights stood absolutely motionless and eerily quiet. As I slammed on the brakes praying I'd stop in time--visions of redrum splattered on the walls--my rose colored glasses flew from my head and I could see clearly for the first time through the glaring red haze that said simply--you've got to stop running.