Charting the evolution of indifference it becomes clear intelligence is a shortcoming. There is no mobile phone service in depression. The are no commercial breaks to interrupt failing lives.

Just this one night and then you can paint over everything I've drawn. Turn the clock back. Take daylight savings time for the heart.

And all the days after will be so much longer.

It's what makes a writer a poet. Not the pain. But the respect I have for it. After everything else is gone. After every lie has been examined. It's the only thing that hasn't changed.

It puts me to bed at night and wakes me up come morning. A callous clock counting down to my destruction. But still a batter friend than most.

The advantage is ours as the traffic lights choke the intersections. With machines made of skin and sweat we lurch toward the top of the hill. So that it may take us down again.

There is a certain immunity in knowing you are the disease. That it's always been there. Inside you. Always will. It still can hurt me, but I'm often better for it. Without what I want, yet undecided on if that matters anymore.

I used to let them. Taking my happiness one goodbye at a time. Writing. Always writing. Never knowing what I had said. In the ends I see the means. Skid marks on my wrists. Red lights in their voices.

We can't ever be us again. I'm not sure if I can even be myself since.

Or that I ever was.

Tearing our moments out of spiral notebooks. Jagged edges won't understand. Writing letters on the wrong side of the pages. It's not about what was said. Or what I wish was. We're only asking to be everything we never will. Storms without their thunder. Lightning without a rod.

A part of me will always be what we were.

Maybe you changed me. Opened the zipper on those clouds. Or maybe you just happened to be there when it all came tumbling out.

Either way.

You had better things to do.

Without debating whether or not there is a god. How self-centered does one have to be to believe there's an omniscient/omnipotent being that hangs on their every word?

Just a thought.

Even if there were a god. And even if it did create the earth and the animals and humanity. Even still, I don't think it'd wanna hear about your desire to win the lottery. And if by some chance it did hear, I can't see how it would care at all.

If I were god I'd just eradicate the entire species. People. Homospaien. Maybe that's why I'm not god.

But it's more likely that it's just because no one is.

I don't understand how anyone can't see the absurdity in believing something so magnificent has the desire to listen to our selfish little prayers. People are so damn self-important.

The truth is we're talking to ourselves. And still we don't listen.

I wondered if he knew how he looked when he was waiting. His eye revving. Guzzling down every speck of light there was in our darkness. Strange how I still felt the same though he had made me so different from myself. The magician's cape smothering his spell. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a rabbit. But it was a one time only deal.

He said I didn't appreciate, but mostly he was wrong. I adore the little things. And the big ones too. But truth gets between us. Tearing the dream out of my head. And the closer he got the better I could hear that velcro screaming as it separated.

It's always a lifetime, no matter how long it's been. Everything up to now the template for all that may come since.

He told me how I looked as I drank beer from the bottle at a bar poorly lit. How my lips hugged the glass in a cerebral blow job of sorts. He said there were two of me for every moment he was with. The one that wanted to be there and the one that didn't.

He was wrong.

There's just one who doesn't know who to trust.

The really drunk guy next to us made me feel better as I flirted with the concept of expectation.

How often it saves us then us only to kill us later.

So where's your insight now that I need it?

Chasing brake lights through the drizzle. Like sad eyes at the backs of their heads searching for what they've left behind.

It's easier to walk. I get there sooner when I don't try so hard.

Sound means more to me than smell. Voices. I remember them all. Can play them back like recordings in my head. Voices are people to me. How I recognize them. Because sound is so much more trustworthy than sight.

Sometimes it feels like I've been holding my breath so long I'm not sure if I've ever used it.

We're all patrons of self-destruction. Clapping so loudly as we watch ourselves up on the stage.

Smothering in curtains that refuse to close. Cheating the dialogue in favor of the costumes.

Life is never so abstract as when I try to listen.

He gave me a good long look and then he left. All I could do was let him.

I plunged the needle into the blister. Expecting blood.

It's not the pain that hurts. And it's not the healing. It's the afterwards. So much dead skin that doesn't remember how to feel.

And I want to.

Feel.

Something.

His pupils were sunburned, though the color of the irises remained constant. He made note of the age of my shirt as he took his off. How old were you then, he asked, like an aardvark casually vacuuming up a colony of ants.

Oh, I was fairly young. Still am in my opinion. Physically at least.

I take every word like medicine, but it never cures me. I was too young to die when I first decided I should, but it doesn't seem crazy now. Weak. And hopeless. And kind of sad. But not crazy anymore.

If the ghost could touch. Feel. Surely it would. But such are its limitations. If the ghost could breathe. Choke down the fury of every embrace. It most certainly would. Instead of just pretending. Sculpting false memories from the moist clay the words are born of.

I don't remember much. It's better that way.

The clang of the belt buckle at it would hit the rivet on his jeans. Zipper wide open. Skin flooding the sheets.

It's not that I don't remember how it feels. It's that the feeling never leaves.

Without eyes still seeing, In the darkness, but not lost. Without any words saying. Without a map still knowing how close we are.

I've always seen the distance. But I never wanted to listen to what it had to say.

There was always something there, but you didn't care if I found it.

Maybe yesterday was right when it lied to me. Told me you didn't care.

He said he was sorry. He wasn't listening. The phone. The voicemail. The pong. That green square all dissected by white lines. Square ball. So distracting.

The cap. The glass. The flute it becomes when I've finished. Breathe. And breathe again. Find. Hunt. The song inside this abyss. The rhythm of falling. The melody in admitting I'm stronger than I want to be.

Even without them. Moreso maybe since.

Catch myself.

Admit.

I wouldn't let myself fall were I not prepared to land.

An instinct. As the line drive cannons toward my crotch. Turn my wrist toward. Cushion the bomb.

There's nothing to trust except my love for them.

Pudding on the stove. Brown spoon stirring. Thinking the heat is better than the cold.

It's just the heat she says. There's no air conditioning for the soul. We're always waiting for the perfect climate, but if we ever found it we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

The truth is we want to suffer.

The pain is the only thing that assures us we're alive.

I wish you could hurt me just once more. But it's not your fault that you can't.

It's mine.

We were fine until the hill hit us. Pushing in neutral. Steering the hard shift. She pushed the bigger questions. Inch by inch. Not realizing the brake was still set.

I smiled haughtily as the engine shifted under the pressure of my weight. Surrounded by the heat. The trucks. The everything but where I wanted to be. I tried to revel in the CD, but it only conjured images of the past. Going. Always going, but never getting there.

I don't have an American dream. Mine is of elsewhere.

Had I ever known such a thing as freedom. The kind they flaunt, but never give me.

Statues of dead men. Their impervious words instantly scratched out. All the slaves they freed only to make us all their victims.

I'm too literal I know. But the price of freedom is a great deal of fear. And I'd gladly pay it to have back what's been taken. Because I'm still afraid. Only now for different reasons.

Naked knees. Broken toes. How am I supposed to feel now. Were this world yours. This life your own?

Every cuticle assigned a color. A piece of the vase. Without roses. Or leaves of green. He knew I knew, but not how much. A child with one firefly in her jar trying to see. Watching it die as I wait for the sun.

I could match his indifference so well that I almost believed that was our connection.

My child. Myself. Spilling from my womb. A hemorrhage of trust. Pooling so blue under cover of flesh. And splintered bones.

What I have loved. What love has given me. So many drugs with a rainbow of arbitrary names. Liquid, pill and syrup. Friend, lover, enemy.

Regardless.

The dosage remains the same.

The butterfly whispered and the archer froze. While a copious tension flooded from lips to lungs. With paper wings the wind would draw upon it. In soft inks like the sting of rubbing alcohol.

On wounds infected.

With a glorious point it pierced the moment. As still and agile as a deceptive smile. His empty embrace only reminding me of all the things I had to write before I could actually leave him.

There's a blister on my back and a needle between my fingers. I'm asking the blood to listen. To let me know it's there. What it sees.

No gravity. No exits. Just a merry-go-round of red. Miles of tiny highways. All dead ends. Hundreds of rivers running to and away from that devilish waterfall in my chest.

There are no bullets for the gun. Just fingers everywhere. I tape its wings to my fingers, but it's not the same.

Calling my skeletons collect.

Standard ache.
Polished heart.

Smooth and opaque.

Antidotes made from
the disease.

There's not time enough to live and to write about it. We have to choose.

The Cheshire cat stole his grin from us while we waited for the beer to melt away our skins. We were only together when we were apart. Only ourselves when we couldn't see each other. Broken voices on crutches made of empty wishes.

I want to learn what it is to truly live. Not just write about it. But if I haven't by now.

It's not that I haven't tried. Just wasn't very good at it.

It used to seem we'd gone too far, but looking back it feels like we never left the start. I wanted to run, even though I knew I'd lose. I never wanted to win. Just wanted to be a part of the race. To know what they had that I did not.

Turn that porcelain into dishes. Change the channel on this darkness. Rewind to when I could still hear him breathing when I had nothing to say to him. Stiff little doll with plastic skin. Pink lips frozen in a smile so sold. While he stared . Waiting for teeth to show. Asking me to love him in spite of the choices he had made.

We were perfect strangers until your name slipped between my clothes.

There's nothing left to love except how hard it is to let them leave.

I am too.

Selfish.

As is anyone who's ever tried to love. And almost succeeded.

There ought to be a hallmark card for I'm sorry I'm so flawed. Sorry you are too. Then at least, we'd have something real to give each other.

I think a bed is a terrible place to try to sleep. Because so often that is where we try so desperately to wake one another. With careless stabs at feeling things the flesh only pretends to know.

Strip off the sheets and all I've got is a filthy mattress that remembers you better than I can now. Still dented where we tunneled through those skins looking for a shelter that wasn't there. You can take away my cape and I'll still fly without it. For a little while. It's only getting high enough and then letting yourself fall. That's all it is.

Long, long chats without ourselves to interfere. Just so many ways to say it's wrong.

I read the poetry in your silence. It doesn't rhyme. And I won't try to make it do that.

No more catching bullets with my lips. Forgetting how to say what's always been waiting to be heard. Ignoring trigger. Telling you I fell apart not because.

I steal the poetry from your silence. Like taking petals off of dead flowers. Pasting them onto a new stem.

You waste it everything you're given. Like you don't care. But I know you do. You tell it all to go away because you think it's leaving you.

I see the poetry in your anguish. One man alone with his questions. Every answer hidden in a beautiful girl. One who will never let him see.

I read the poetry in your silence. I cull my own from those same roots. I'd hate you if I could, but instead I jut find myself languishing in your delusion.

That life can be framed. Hung like a photograph. Ours to stare upon while nothing happens.

You think you've been burned when you haven't even struck the match.

I read the poetry in your silence and I pity you. For all my sorrow, I've still owned the things you never have.

I'm only biting the stairs. Angry and docile. Because I'm always confused about how I should feel. While you ride an elevator that doesn't go anywhere. Waiting to go some place it can't ever take you.

I wish you knew. Or that I could show you. The poetry in your silence. How you look from the outside. Another shell pretending the ocean. Making the sound and nothing else. Another person with nothing left to love.

I never wanted to change you. Only wanted to show you how I felt. I guess I did. If this silence knows us as well as it contends.

I'll chase you like the horizon does the sun. Until every last bit of light is gone. And even then it won't have to be far until we'll meet again.

You sold me. But it's my fault for not asking a higher price to begin with.

You sold me and now we're trying to figure out how much it was worth.

We'll know someday when we've measured this against other treasures.

Lips to rim and yoga tongues. Plastic ice never melts. The cold comes from within. Even after I've made my peace with everyone there's still myself to forgive.

I didn't want to, but it wasn't something I could let go. So many creases in the paper to fall into. I never promised him I could do it, but even still I had to. If only to prove to myself I hadn't been beaten.

I used to look at the pig in the mud and wish to see bacon. As if that fence made us strangers. Brick by brick. Puzzle after puzzle solved until the whole world was different.

Where I was myself again and he was just a person I never really knew. Confetti stale on the sidewalk after the parade has ended.

I used to use time to tell me what was wrong about us. But then it began using me instead.

I chased the undertow in the bottle's breath until it brought me to this island. It could've drowned me, but instead it just deposited me here. To look out from this beach never knowing how far that horizon stretches.

I used to think I had perspective, but now I know distance is the only thing I possess.

You wore my shadow so well. Heavy trenchcoat aboard your shoulders. You'd shrug it on and I'd stare at the sight of you dressed in me. Unsure of how you could fit inside it. And then you'd push it off just as easily. And I couldn't reconcile my gratitude and my disappointment. There are words for what I felt, but I don't know them. All I see are outlines. Crayon silhouettes shaking above the maps they've drawn on us.

And we color everything in until we don't even know why

We put those shadows back on their hangers and wait for another closet to let us in.

Wearing each other in the meanwhile. Telling ourselves they fit.

Mapping out the past in cold abbreviations until the whole words give in. I'd let it go if I thought for one minute that's what you wanted.

It's so over, but we're doomed to envy our past. Because no future could ever flaunt such promise as catatonic dreams can.

And when I remember you I only think that I could've been more real. Not the skin you shed, but the one you took with you when you left.

The serpent in the glass dances with my breath. The song never changes. The end is always there percolating in the belly of the beginning. Just waiting to be born again.

Wearing our blood as underwear.

I don't have tomorrow. Nor yesterday. This is it. All that I am. Will ever be. One sting and then it's over. Leave my arrow and my abdomen caught in your skin while I fly away too scared to realize I've left half of myself there.

Shivering like a leaf whose tree is about to let go. Wanting so much to change, but so lost in the color I've always been.

I want to say it's late, but truthfully it isn't. A little shy of tomorrow. Slightly darker than I thought it would be tonight. I'd always anticipated the sunset. It's how long it takes to rise again that worries me.

We're not debating how alone I am. That's the one thing we can both agree on. The stars all seem to frown as I look up at them. I pretend to pick fruit off of empty vines because I don't know what else to do.

Nothing grows because nothing is planted. I pretend to count the seeds. Because I don't want them to know.

You won't ever hurt me again. That is what I'll miss most.

Does this dilute the poison? This process of adding text to thoughts. Or does it make it more potent. Create an explosive. To burst this padlock on my heart. Let the animals out of their zoo. To hunt. To struggle. To live again like living things do. With claws out and fangs ready. Always hungry enough to give chase. To kill for a taste of.

Don't I know her. So puffed up with poetry's petticoat. A facade of words to measure the breadth of superfluous habits. Buying candy right off the shelf. Longing for the time when it took weeks to save up for just once piece. It's never tasted as good as it did then. Every penny I've saved for something that can't be bought.

Short walks over long distances. I stuck out my tongue and he swallowed my lips. A strange piped-piper luring all the thoughts away from the village with a different kind of flute.

He played me so many songs, but the one I'll always remember is how he listened. Especially when I had nothing to say.

He always heard me then.

The left knee was where the scar from the incision still waited for new flesh to cover it up.

But I liked the way it always showed.

I waited. For something to change. Cursing the waves as they kept repeating. I thought the water. The salt. Might change my perspective. So many people. I could see what an abundant world it is.

I listened for the sound of small footsteps. As they made their way through the heavy sand. Indent after indent tracing the path of our indecision. He dressed me in the trees. A heavy nightgown. And we watched the moon as it watched us. Pretending there were no other worlds other than the one we'd found in each other.

I couldn't keep it from ending. I could only let it happen. Let it have me for the time being. Admit the power wasn't mine. Hadn't ever been. That love means surrender. Hoping against all odds they will have the same inclination.

He said he could see me there in the grip of the darkness. And I wanted to believe him. That we could share the light.

But people are just broken book jackets. Hiding pages they've yet to write.

We wait for the sun to wake up when all we want to do is sleep.

Forget how it felt to be embraced by them.

We had so many chances to be whatever we wanted. If they're gone now we're the reason.

I probably don't remember how you looked, but I think I remember how you felt.

Room temperature taffy pulling on my teeth. As I tried to chew. Wings everywhere with no place to go.

We always say we want, but we don't really know.

You traded your lion for a kitten and now you wonder where the roar's gone.

The truth is I never really heard anything but the purring.

Coaxing the humility out of the most innocent of situations. She dances on the balls of her feet, but walks on her toes. Because everything looks so tall when you're too close to it.

And I'm always there. Right up against the face of the mountain. Not seeing how far away the ground is.

I can't remember the distance to here and back. Don't even know if I want to go round trip.

How do we fix something that isn't broken? It's just not built to do what we're asking of it.

I don't want to be found. Or to find. We had our moment. That was more than enough. I pulled back the curtain on that rainbow and saw the gold being manufactured.

These are just dreams we adopt from TV to flesh. A paradox that asks more than it gives. Won't you love me. Make me whole. And together we'll be the pieces that still are unable to fit.

I hear the reason in their voices. A cold calculator fractioning out their lives. Decimal by decimal point until all the whole numbers are forgotten. There is an algebra to every caress. x plus y equals n amount of satisfaction. Mass times force squared reveals the velocity in her breath. How far she'll go to know you again.

I think there's more to life than finding someone else to prove you, but then again there's also a lot less.

It's the ones who learn that don't stand a chance.

We live our lives on the edge always thinking we're close, but that kind of distance isn't measured the same.

Start from when you put out the cigarette. Still brushing the sand from the soles of your shoes as each footprint followed you toward.

The waves long receded. The sting of the jellyfish fading. The salt on your breath just an afterthought as you crawled into the backseat together.

What do you remember about her? Freckled skin tense under the strobe lights of your stare. Nylon mini skirt excited with static puckering toward the space between her thighs. Like a candy scented invitation to open her up.

What do you remember? When the choice is yours? What happened or what might have? Had you really undressed her. Removed all those skins that kept you from truly being inside her. Filling the hole she painted your name on.

Do you know the difference between just closing the door and hearing the latch click?

Do you ever wonder what she looks like when no one's there? The scarecrow without its straw. How she speaks when no one listens. The way the words jump from her lips in a downpour of small suicides.

Until every thought is dead.

Bloated demons float downstream. Their colors so vivid against the contrast of the dark water. With careless acumen they go through the guest list.

Diligently preparing for am elaborate and spectacular downfall.

My hand trembles as I hold it out for them to stamp. To make certain I am able to get back into the party even after I've tried to leave.

Sometimes I ask myself what could they want. And I don't know except to hurt me. If they can. Like any arrow would want. But then I realize how useless that is when I already do this so well on my own.

Do they know like I do that it's getting worse? That it has to? Salvation is only to be found in defeat.

We lose each other in every touch. We're only found after all that pleasure is gone. Slipping back into those shriveled skins we had discarded when we started this useless process of trying to live.

I had so much strength until I tried to be a woman. Feel them. Touch them in ways a girl would not. What I hate most about all of it is remembering the chill of surrender as it would run its fingers through my hair. Causing a waterfall of fear down my back as futility I tried to swim against it.

Swollen suspenders bend your shoulder lower still until we are eye to eye again. Like how it looked when your life first spilled its latex all over the frail ridge I had cultivated in the colors.

I used to want to steal back the fruit. Unpeel those apples skins. But I cannot blame the snake for lies I decided were ample enough truth.

Scolding the verses because they're too kind. We're all burdened with the words, but the difference is I listen to mine. They tell me so many things I never wanted to know. About myself. About my choices.

I could turn you into a collar. Make this damaged tuxedo fit. But the party's almost over anyway.

When we finally know we're drowning there's nothing left to do except blame ourselves.

We only talk to each other because no one else will listen. I only hurt because it's the only feeling I've ever trusted.

I'd love you either way. Regardless of what you want. I'd lose to let you win. Even if it meant we couldn't be rivals ever again.

I've already lost you dozens of times to the pull of my kindness. How hard could it be to do it again?

Scalloped edges flank the flow of blood as it insists ownership of the life I refused. Or upon debate was afraid to live.

Give me child. Bear me reason. In new life so is the old reborn. Inflate this empty balloon until it may rise. Gallop off into the sun. Forgetting itself in what sores evolved out of its skin.

Learning the sink. Every drop the faucet bleeds. As we wait for the water to warm.

Pale comparisons in metaphor. There was tomorrow once, but now there is only tonight. In her bright, red skin the demon arranges her claws. To keep count of all the happiness we have discarded.

If only we could blame her. Or anyone else.

If only I could find a sin to repent. I think I'd feel better. But there is nothing evil in what we've done.

Except what we've left behind.

I lived my life in the ninety-ninth percentile. Until. So what does it mean now.

The box is still a box. The cone still pointed. The right angle is still a squared plus b squared equals.

I told them how, but all they ever wanted to know was when. I couldn't do it for them. Tried to show them, but intelligence is the worst from of communication.

They always told me I was better, but I never felt it was true.

Working so hard for the words that never work.

I tried to conceal how they made me feel. Tried until it actually succeeded. And everything was written in chalk. Gone as easily as it came.

It's not as if I expected to really live. To know what it is to really love. In any three-dimensional way. But I saw the hologram and tried to touch it.

For a while it even seemed like I had.

I guess I should feel hurt. But all I feel is used.

We're not counting, but the numbers refuse to let go. You're sorry, but you don't know why.

See, that's how I know you're really not. Be my tragedy for tonight and tomorrow we will go back to our ordinary lives.

I used to think you'd be sorry. And I would too. When you finally realized you needed me and I was no longer there.

But now I just think I tried too hard to be someone I'm not.

The ninety-ninth percentile is a beautiful place to be when you're young. But the older I get the lonelier it is.

Nothing holds my attention like pain does. Nothing moves me so much as losing what I couldn't own.

Sallow turmoil lays the silence end to end. Eye to eye. So that we may see each other free from the burden of that look of certainty in our goodbyes.

I am born again, though not in any god. I am born in every touch that knows not when or if it will ever be reciprocated. The claw covered in blood, yet nothing in its grip. No prey. Nor hunter. Just shadows possessed with desire.

See I know now, everything I knew was only what they would have me believe. Some truths. Some lies. A stewpot of dreams they'd once hoped to live. Their last poor Yorick before Hamlet's revenge.

We seldom see each other. Ourselves so much in our vision. The world trickles in like sunlight through cracked glass. We see them only as victims of the fractures in our own shattered exteriors. Little balls of sight with such sharp edges.

So distant that I can't imagine ever being even remotely near. So swollen with. It's not that we are alone together. But that together we find ourselves so alone.

We can always look. But seeing hurts so much. Everything has always been far way. But lately the longer I walk the farther away it gets.

I'm not trying to heal.

Just looking for the strength to keep it from getting worse.

To convince myself life is not the disease.

Soldiering the truth one bullet at a time. Camouflage is what you make of it. What shall I resemble now? In the steadfast. In the clutch of the appropriate. What worms remain on the hook. Not as bait anymore. Just remnants of the lure.

I whispered purposely so he couldn't hear. Telling him everything I needed to say without ever having to see him know it.

Would you ask the bird not to fly? Would you ask the artist not to paint? So how then could you ever ask that I change?

What was it that you thought you loved that now you find you cannot see? I know I'm the same. So it must be you who is different. Or fickle. Or a liar. Maybe both.

You tell me I should be happy, but you give me no reasons. You're thankful just to be alive, but I say you're wrong. As afraid to die as I am to live.

Chasing the bottom word by word. Until all those images are text. And I can control my voice again. Everything that happened between us is mine.

Not yours at all.

Because I lied to no one.

And I do understand exactly why what once you wanted so much now you find so repulsive.

Because it's not right that we have to choose between love and happiness.

But everyone does.

Pardon me for breaking character here, but something has really been nagging at me lately. It bothered me when I first downloaded the song from Napster what seems like an eternity ago now. Ant it has bothered especially more ever since I actually purchased a legitimate copy of the recording. I was wondering does it bother anyone else that on Disturbed's Sickness CD they spelled it S-t-u-p-i-f-y.

Yea, it's probably just me.

Do you know how it is to always wake up next to yourself. No matter how much the night before took me away, there I am again.

Pressing the coffee to my lips. Swallowing life in raw, sugar-free doses. The employee. The child. The sister.

Clay ballerina with tights made of lead. Up on my toes once more to dance for them. Gathering shadows from all across the stage to collect for when the curtain closes.

It's the daylight that cuts me open. Let her bleed out from underneath my skin. But she or I. Which of us is the prison. That is a distinction I've yet to make.

No medicine. Only the disease calmly plotting the course of its roots. No saying goodbye. Only letting go. Night after night lapsing into reason.

There I was. Shadow in the mouth of the moat. And he told me what he saw. Child yanking the string where once the balloon had floated.

Can't we have the sand without having to build something there? Can't we just die a little bit. Instead of always having to see it end.

I count the miles as the treetops pass. Wondering how far there is to go. And then he finally stops the car and looks at me. And I don't know why I'm there. Or how I could ever belong.

It's not as though I have any place to be except anywhere else.

But I remember the dart of his eyes. Frightened chipmunks. The curdle in his voice as it soured at telling me what I wanted to hear.

I'd always intended to be stronger. Until I found out I wasn't.

By then, all I wanted was, to find out how well he could exploit those weaknesses.

Sometimes it's a luxury just to be hurt.

It's hot on one side of the room. Cold on the other. Only inches change everything. Whether it smells like tar. Or tastes like sweat. The nicest truth he could come up with was that he wished he did.

I feel so sober lately. Even when I'm supposedly drunk. That I've been cast in concrete. That the only way to move is to break. I try to remember the sensation of being touched.

But I can't recall.

Neither the thorn nor the velvet. As the air whispers under my skin. Little words. Fragments of fading thoughts. Memory leaves me with only images. Moments stalled.

And even it has little empathy left.

Folding quarters in half. Forcing off our socks. As if we're ever bare. Cupping my hand to catch the last of the light.

I went so many places I can never go back. And now they own everything I thought I had.

It wasn't enough then and it still isn't.

I'll tell you why it's over. Because it is.

Because my tongue tastes like expired xanax and the answer to every question I compulsively ask myself is no. Not yet.

I'll tell you I'm over only when it's the truth. The pungent gaff of your wisdom nearly sobers me up.

The dog on its hind legs may stand, but it's only steady on all fours. Just once for me, fall down. Admit you're not entirely independent.

You're not what you tell me you are. You're what I'm left with when gravity wins.

It's over because it never really started. Broken pistol began the race. Missing line was the finish.

It's over because I say it is. Since you were never kind enough to say it for me.

My heart. Even for free you wouldn't take it. And I can't decide if that makes you a good man.

Pale ensemble. Soft heroines in hard dresses. Ambivalent. Wanting nothing and everything. Don't take me there. Invite me and I will come when I'm ready.

The pillow never tells our secrets. While our thoughts flood over it. Spilling out gracelessly as we tear off each other's skins.

Wearing one another. Plastic masks with stapled on rubber bands. Barely clinging to our faces. Frozen lips. Words coming out all deformed. Vinyl hands emulating skin. As we reach for our latex weapons.

There's no funeral. If it never lived. Just empty wombs wheezing for the breath that was taken from them.

Dancing like a flag on a pole. Shouting at the wind. As it pushes us closer.

Or pretends to do so.

The grave won't whisper. It will always scream. As my ear touches the threads that once held the cap in place. The grave isn't for the dead. It's for the living. Something to love when nothing's left.

I scramble for the perfect words, but you took them away with you.

You wear your nervous eyes when you talk to me, but I am calmed by them. I don't want to intimidate you, but it's flattering that I do.

We're still spinning. Always spinning though the needle hiccups at the label's edge. There is the title. And the artist.

And that hum. The static of sound eager to happen.

Like the ghosts of ourselves trying to warn us. We're not young enough anymore. To be hurting each other like this.

There's nothing to see except lonely people looking for somewhere to land. Empty roads are forgotten for the everything else we take for granted. Eyes like matches. Setting fires everywhere.

I catch the hawk hunting from high above and wonder how it knows. Which claw will kill. And which will only cripple.

Take your clothes off as though you hardly know the difference. Cotton skin strewn everywhere. Like christmas lights all tangled. Ready to be undone.

Drawing the tragedy with an empty pen. I can't die for those who wouldn't die for me.

Truth my alibi as I watch their lives happen. Shadows of who they think they are.

Everything is real until we touch it. Soft velour masquerading as velvet. It's not that it's not good enough. Just that it doesn't believe.

My perjury. I lied to myself. And believed it. Because everything I wanted depended upon convincing myself there was truth in this laughless comedy.

My perjury. My conviction. Myself. The judge.

I'm only as guilty as my softest wish.

I can get so near. Or so I thought. Just edges really. Drawing their margins.

I don't need to know how to live. Remembering too well those treadless stairs dropping me down into. I couldn't fall that far for anyone. Not even you.

I've changed colors for the last time. There's no going back to the branch.

It's more noble I would think to allow it to forget.

I don't ever want to want again. Not like this.

Drawing the margins with broken pencils. Trying to decide how far. Drawing all over each other like treasure maps to unseizable riches.

Everything beautiful treats me like a skeptic. I don't blame it. That's what I am. Always waiting for it to disappoint.

Given enough time.

It always does.

Starting with just one word. A primary focus. Stealing images away from life. To keep with me after it's over again.

Feeling the brakes twittering like lost butterflies. Not wanting to stop.

Seeing them seeing me. Through vulture's eyes. A dead feast. Staring back. Disdain my only invitation. Evolution happening inside us in microscopic proportions.

Chewing the ice tooth by tooth. Painting the lies with dry brushes. I'd rather watch them leave than ask them to stay and be rejected.

I can't pretend to be what they would want. Can't stop biting these painted nails or wiping these colored lips.

The sun on my doorstep falls the same regardless of whether there's someone else in my bed.

Here we are always waiting to blossom, when they're always keeping us closed.

I know how it feels to be alone. And that it feels much better than being with them.

Why tease the scorpion. It will sting when it's ready. Why give them your blood when they only sought your sweat.

Together people are so delicate. Like flower petals between questioning fingers. No maybe's left.

Apart we are strong. Or that which we imagine strength must look like. Anchors on the ocean floor keeping giants at rest.

Patterns. There they are navigating from below my skin. Taking it away and bringing it back again in a futile loop.

Together we touch. Pretending to feel. Something other than our own holes being filled. One breath of life amongst a thousand chokes. Snakes with impotent fangs trying to relive the kill.

When all the venom is gone there's nothing left to do except let ourselves live again.

Pierce the fruit.

Sour candies in her hand. So yellow with days gone by. No more chocolate. Last kisses lasting longer than they should have. If all was right with the world. But it never is.

How humble is the giant now? That the sun rises to meet its stare. We're only as tall as our shortest comings. It has to rain. It must. If anything is ever to grow again.

I wanted to know them, but I can live with just being told I did. Even if it wasn't real. At least they had the courtesy to lie to me when it really mattered.

There's no knowing anyone except ourselves. In everything we lack. They come when it hurts and leave when it's better. Feeble infections that don't know how to become diseases.

Searching the archives of your touch for when it began, You're not there, but your promise is.

Even if it means nothing now.

Searching the streetlights for a sign. Nothing is true anymore except how gone it is.

We draw our skulls on the paper. Cartoon effigies of conversations we once had. Lips howling like fire engines rushing to save what is already dead.

My hand tracing the lines in my head. To see what it won't show me. Shuddering outlines pretend to measure how deep that abyss goes. There's just never reason enough to argue with those internal voices as they scold.

They've always been right. I just don't want to hear them anymore. They've never been wrong, but I don't care.

It's not as though I'm Cinderella. Those glass slippers just crack when I stand. Bloody heels, not so attractive. Those pumpkins take me to parties where no one dances. And fairy godmother's always have so many problems of their own.

So I let them leave. Because I never expected they would choose to stay. And I count the steps from there to here. Telling myself I've gone far enough. That I should know how much I've overcome. Just that I can still say I love them.

Because it was never about me.

The summer in its softest gown wears no shoes. The night swallows its own sigh and touches her toes. They spill like apples from baskets too full. It's not the red skin I notice. It's the juice.

Shouldn't this shame take away my knees again. Force me to stand when crawling is the only thing I can fathom.

Talking to the chalkboard as if it can find my words in the dust that's left. I've never even held an eraser in my hand, but somehow still, it all vanishes.

It's not as hot as it should be, but it's warm enough. Nothing really happens as it should anymore. Especially the weather.

Her white dress so wrinkled from constantly bending over to validate what we've lost.

It can't be shame when the moon is this bright. Peering through my window. White giant cyclops cursed with such tiny hands. Seeing everything there is to see in all this everywhere, but unable to hold anything except the smallest pieces.

It feels like shame, but I think it's acceptance.

To their bushes they go. And are counted. Feather by feather. Until I am convinced that flight is a curse. And I've always been falling.

Even when I was sure I was high enough to see everything.

Always kept the shades open, but still somehow lost the sun.

Pulling the trigger on dead munitions.

You tell yourself those lies and sometimes I still believe them. As much as you do. Maybe more. Because nothing in this world casts a shadow anymore. Any light passes right through it. As though it weren't even there.

Occasionally I wish I were young enough still to put my hands into these empty pockets and walk as if there's something there to grab.

There's no driving there. It's the kind of place I must reach by foot. I've always seen mountains where were only molehills stood, but this time they actually are that big.

Born into every answer. Except how to know what to do when there is none.

As opaque as your lies are crafted your transparency is not that easily contained.

I wouldn't want me anyway. Had I that choice.

The movies end leaving black screen. And I have to wait. For something new to take over.

Alone you are. As always you've been. I can't be saved by a ghost nor can I rescue it.

It was only yesterday I imagined how it would feel to allow pain to take the saddle again. Relinquish all control.

There are so many ways to kill myself. You're only one of them.

He spoke in only vowels. No consonants. No words. Only sounds and gestures to their effect.

Deliberately handling the pages edgewise. Soliciting those paper cuts. To be wounded without the burden of having to bleed. To feel his pain in small, manageable doses. No need for bandages. Just small pricks now and then. Nothing big enough to show what's under that skin.

I used to be that polar. But now it's always temperate. Nothing matters. And I can't remember why it ever did.

I plunge the chopsticks deep into that cardboard origami container, but come up with nothing. But it's not like forks ever served me any better.

Quietly we ate our food and then it was over.

What I thought was the coolest thing about London was their traffic lights. Instead of using the yellow light just to warn about the impending red, they also used it to indicate the green was coming.

Life should be like that too. Not just tell me when to get ready to stop, but also tell me when to get ready to go.

Where I'm from we know the light's about to change by glancing over at the one for the cross street. But that doesn't work as well as it used to. Now there are a dozen different traffic signals at every intersection. Arrows for left turns. And for rights. Sometimes even arrows just for going straight. U-turns sometimes. And left turn lanes others. Occasionally those right turn doohickies.

I know how to get there, but I don't know why I'm going. I know yellow means slow down, but sometimes I wish it meant go.

I should feel like I'm a part of the traffic, but I don't. I just feel surrounded by it.

And there aren't enough yellow lights in the world to ready me for where I'm going this time.

With torn cuticles she pointed toward a spot on the horizon which I couldn't see at all. Somewhere close to the sun.

With bitten nails she scratched her cheek. Not noticing the blood it had drawn until she saw. Strange tongues everywhere. Taking what she'd been losing.

I think I hurt her, but I don't know how I could've avoided it.

Why fret how it left us when we always knew it would. Why lie to ourselves and say it changed us, when clearly, it was us who changed it.

She never worse a gown. Never lost a slipper. But still she'd always been waiting on her happily ever after.

How could this sight be so right when I do everything I can to make it wrong.

Strange how she cries, but never sheds a tear.

He saw her once. That first time. And couldn't look again.

Desolate with demons.

So sure they were his friends.

She put the microscope close to her lips and waited for the revelation to appear on the other side of the glass. The words appeared so much larger, but still didn't make a sound. If only it were possible to sneak up on these moments. The way they do to us.

Silence the velcro as its torn apart from itself.

I could stare all day at the frame. Life in pantyhose. So much prettier than what's inside them. These instant coffee people leave me worse off than had I none. I smell the alluring aroma but the taste is nothing like it foretold.

Her frivolous musings bleed passed the margins as she presses her thoughts deeper into the darkness. It's there on every wall that surrounds her. Broken bottles screamed their last words upon.

With hair too long and eyes too narrow she scratched the thoughts. Solitude's instant lotto. Never expecting to win anything except another useless ticket. Another chance to reveal what she's always known.

There will be words enough again. If I can be patient.

But for now. There are no sidewalks. Only the cracks between them.

I'm not immune. Nor have I had this disease before. The one where I feel myself forgetting, but the amnesia fluctuates between utter numbness and gun point urgency.

I'm not alive. The world curling up in my fist. An unproven lottery ticket.

I'm not dead. Sea of years gone suddenly still. Russian Roulette with every chamber full.

If I had a voodoo doll I know just how it would look. Jaggedly stitched lips sewn forever into a gentle frown. No toes. No fingers. Just feet and hands that possess no grip. There'd be no needles in the pale fabric that serves as her flesh. Just tiny holes all over her little body that no one had bothered to close after they'd pulled out the one they'd put in.

I look for right. That moral precept so elusive. But I don't find it.

I bait the truth with the prospect of changes in myself. But why should it care. If it, in fact, it does exist.

Why would the truth ever come to us when it knows we're driven to chase it.

Seeing it not for what it is, but only how it reflects what in ourselves we wish were different.

I was born able to make holes in these walls. But I must learn how to repair them.

The cut scraps of paper lay upon the floor. Thoughts in coma. Abducted from helpless hearts. Strapped down. Tied to their bed. In this asylum we sometimes refer to as moving on.

Taking their words not as wholes, but one syllable at a time. In doses. The rise of the wave. The peak. And the break as it bites down on the sand. Devouring every footprint we made as we walked together there.

I felt him hurting again, but then I always have. I wanted to be the bandage. The antiseptic. But he'd always refuse.

The more things broke the less he was willing to let anyone help him.

Maybe we're alike. Same paper. Same pen. Different drawings. And I was right from the beginning.

Or maybe we're completely different. Different colors. Different inks. Same sketches. And I was wrong. As wrong as he was when.

He let himself become someone he couldn't respect.

I can't grow a rose, but I can pick one. It's not so difficult to hold it and still avoid the thorns.

And even if it should prick me, I'm grateful for anything that grows in this saline garden.

How does his skin fit over my clothes? Pointed eyes enraged with curiosity. His questions engulf me. Drowning in what he must know. Only for all intents and purpose the answers he seeks still vex me.

Just the skin on the pudding. Drawn back to reveal the creamy center. But not without its own merits.

They always say what suits me. Never realizing I am not suited to it. Wearing their tuxedos all day. As if bow ties on the floor might enhance our mutual nakedness.

If I drove faster, I might get there sooner. But chances are I'd fly right by without ever noticing what I'd missed.

There are so many ways to change. This is only one of them.

Every day he shows me others.

If you ever see a girl pulling her hair back as you look upon her, she's telling you to look.

Again.

For the woman in her.

I don't know what I actually said to him and what I only imagined as the keyboard. Coaxed. The lamb in amongst the lion's cubs. Roaring still louder than any of them. Because its survival depends on how genuine its lie sounds.

The prince with glass slippers in both hands. Cinderellas everywhere. The fairy tale confronts us with flowers. The scent telling us how it must look. Even if we can't see.

It must be true. Because otherwise, everything they've told us is a lie. It must be time to molt again, because this skin is getting tight. And these scales are failing.

So much weight where once there was none. So much weight in all this nothing.

I miseld you. Misled everyone I've ever known. Into thinking I was still alive.

Feeling your own heart break so much. As if that bridge goes in only one direction.

Being different is the worst fate and the best. Seeing adversaries in every friend. Because what else could they want. Other than to hurt me. Stub out this cancer like a butt in an ashtray. Prove to themselves I am not the same.

Chewing gum in the lion's mane. God under their fingernail as the point takes place.

Every direction wrong.

Serving the risk in useless doses. Limp veins won't carry the proof.

That I tried.

Such diligent needles chase these rips. Nervous eyes. Arrogant fingers. It's the thread that betrays. The knot that slips through these erstwhile stitches. And I know how everything feels. Not just this one curtain. But every one. On every window.

If we could close the holes we'd be poorer for it. Victims of the perfection we worship. Their trespasses are the purest form of love. When everything is right, the wrong is all that I can trust.

The squeak of his jacket as he leaned in to let me taste him. The sound of our breathing filling the compartment. Its dominion broken at last in one fluid act of aggression. And I shrunk like a child in the shadow of a fist. Signaling to the pain I was ready for it.

One hour's drive back until time has changed. Zeroed. So many green lights. Not enough gas.

Stabbing the stop signs with knives made of clay. As the handles consumed my grip. There was everywhere to go. But nowhere to rest. I was simply a myth debunked. My own holy grail proven powerless.

To every vein there is a needle. With equal ability to give or to take. The reins in the horse's mouth are merely an extension of the whip.

Small conjectures. Long hairs on slender legs. The evolution of love has no room in it for imperfection.

My failure to influence is citation enough. Pay the fine. Admit the cover can tell the book. We've changed. The first pages is already too deep.

Sitting through the thunderstorms. The lightning too close to my wrists. I imagine where the blood goes when I let it stay in there. Looking for words to tell me how much it will hurt to be swallowed by the red. I don't know, but I should.

Turning like beetles on our backs. Stale crescendos. Such a brilliant symphony we pretend. Feathers imagining they are wings.

I know what I am. Paperless crayon. No name for the color it tries to be. No label for the all the outlines it's filled in.

Just the staccato of the hour as it attempts to extract music from this din.

We want to be Tolkein, but Star Trek is all we are. Orphaned Klingons. Hoping to die better.

Turning down the volume on the void. Softly scratching our names into the bark. I tried to keep count, but I ran out of fingers and toes. I tried to close the windows, but the key was already out of the ignition.

Pressing the pedal as dead it made no sound. That burst of fuel kinetic all gone. Magic sheep on every corner as the dogs would run. Like children without homework. Drawing on the pavement. While behind every building the compressors hum.

I'm ready at last, to be, them. Broken pencils tearing the paper. Nothing drawn. Nothing written upon. Other than the breath of the hour as it accuses. Charges me with murder.

So many of them. But just one victim.

The smaller the pieces the bigger the picture.

Blue channels in the arms. Vagrant disciples of the past. Myself. My protagonist. My war.

There is no happiness. Only denial or sedation. As I test the road all over again, I realize the buffer is always there. Speed only an afterthought. As the trees swallow the horizon. And nothing goes. We just see the changes in each other and assume we have moved.

It's not good enough just to be sorry. You have to know why you are. Tell yourself. Not me. I finished mourning you a long time ago. But the grave will always be there.

Life is a relentless insomnia. I can't feel anything except the stones in my head. The needles in my eyes. The world a hologram. No dimensions. Just senseless sounds and useless images.

My enemy. My Ally.

One.

He had everything he needed. And nothing. So did I. The sun doesn't move at all. The earth does. That's how I know everything we think we see is backward at best.

So much power in every pause. Silence thunders and strikes. The darkness threatening to burst at the thought of waking up.

From this insomnia.

My triumph. My surrender.

Our loss.