You say that as if it can hurt me. Your little pushpins scope to navigate my motives. In a colorful array. Of vain guesses. And self-oriented theories. The vomit on the keyboard. Colors close to the edges. So appropriate. For these thoughtless fingers. Pale messengers. Detached from the disease.

We talk casually. Content with the distance. He bleeds. Dry and dense. A connection I don't want. A touch too thick. I warn him those windows don't open, but he says he already knows. And doesn't care.

I wore nothing. As I neared the entrance. Stubborn turnstiles looking for proof.

I shuffled the deck. Certain I'd misplaced the aces. I dealt the cards. Convinced I'd lose. The monkey laughed in the background. Bridges not crossed. And better ways to fall.

We were always so close. To finding the switch. But the bulb was missing. I turned the light on. I saw him. A genie driven from his lamp. All out of wishes.

A David. A Goliath. The rock trembling in his hand. So many monsters. So little ammunition.

It only looks drastic from far away. Get closer. Try on the fragments. Little dialects in skin. Like adverbs with a drug addiction.

You don't know my name. I'm not even sure I have one. The lucid hysterics of wash and wear victims.

We were fresh out of adjectives when the nouns sauntered in. Stark north. On our broken compass led us toward. A ramshackle universe where we already existed. The same, but different. I talked to myself for a while before getting bored.

Take this with you. I told myself.

It's nothing to you now, but someday it will be everything. The future only glimpses us between the hands covering its eyes. The time machine scribbles blindly on the blank places above our ass.

The minutes melt like ice cream. In chlorine hands on a summer vacation. I think I met her once, but she doesn't remember me.

Negotiating with the nightmare. She paused. Foul with a sermon on morality. Who knows better than a sinner what not to do. Listen to us. The sinners are the only ones who can save you.

The ladder led up. To higher dimensions. Worlds where I was good enough for them. Worlds I could glimpse, but never enter. The boxed dolls with their feet akimbo. Faking the dance. For the music they can't hear.

I've always been counting. One by one those leaning towers refuse to tumble. I've always been flirting with the portal. Old men with their heavy fists. Pounding absent tables.

I tried to warn him. That this was all disappearing. I only want what I can have. I can only worship tangible gods.

It was too easy. All that time travel. All gymnastics and ball room dances. As if the music wasn't just in my head.

The monkeys on the long branch. Discussing with lax gods. The tiny moments memory would neglect.

Wake up she says. I'm so tired of all this sleeping. She swallows the shoe of the dead doll. And vomits up its toes.

She tells them she's been there. And what will happen. They don't believe her.

She comes back. To the stalwart mannequins. And waits while they dress themselves. She writes down the verb. So that she might remember it. When she's here again.

The long words. Trailing off into sleep. Always warned. Of bad dogs. Feral with the decisions. Only animals can make. The scribbles on her wrists. Diaries of the skin. Written with razors. Tell stories she assumes will never be read. The vandals. The lovers. Come later. To embellish them with their graffiti.

The monsters are reanimated. In strikes of touch like lightning. A gruesome mosaic of the people we once were. Resentful for the drunk scientists who have brought them back to life.

Everyone wants to die. They're just afraid.

The cardboard in her eyes. Withering under sudden realization. The truth mushrooming. After the initial impact. Rain. And snow. And Soggy doll heads. Asking her questions there are no answers to. Homeless again. She picks up her frail box. And begins assembling the pieces.

The monsters. Born again. To the thunder of when. All those devils were obvious. And we never worried about evil until after we'd done it.

She sat on a soft corner of the globe. Nothing to do, but wait. For the world to catch up. Plastic legs. And hairs that never grow back.

She talked to stubborn gods. Content behind their sunglasses. Yellow bricks long since laid. In complex equations. Flying monkeys condemned to hunt. For the witches. That were integral to life. The atoms confiding in them. How tired they are. Of fusion.

Wake up. The mirror demanded. As she slept too deep. Try on these coffins. How dead are you since. you last shoved the witch into her oven. Chewed on the candy canes that kept her house standing.

I already know what's out there.

So much nothing.

It's what's within that puzzles. The cliff that I peer over. As the bottom beckons. The moist asphalt under my toes. As I walk. On these lazy epiphanies.

The humble of touch. Sweeping the dust from bones repeatedly mended. The choir of skin echoed in her footsteps.

As she walks off again.

I'm an egg. Break me. She whispered. You overlook the obvious. I'm the number. As your feet count the steps. Up to heaven. Only to discover. It won't let you in.

I'm the devil In thong underwear. Mouth to the tailpipe. Keeping the garage door shut. The numbers are a suicide. Flirting with stubborn islands.

The paradox means nothing. Tickling the atom. Its calm laugh erupting.

The pattern is touch. A sequence I'd do just as well to foget.

The cellar was more than adventure enough. For dead bulbs. And that dark lamps which could not change them. It's tempting to think in hours. When the minutes are callous. I built us a fire. With her red underwear and bitten nails. Still she shivered.

I wasted years. Naming every star. As I laid on my back in the grass. Gazing up at the black. I didn't learn a thing. But it was the best time I'd ever had.

Take your bricks to the devil warned the witch. Take your daggers to your bed. It's better if you're familiar with the blood, but it's not necessary. You may come and go as you please from hell, but heaven is not so tolerant.

The limbs. The toes. The plastic fingertips. The doll. Ripping open the grave I've dug for it. The cautious motives of old men. Turning their victims into predators.

We talked about vampires. Drinking blood. And immortality. We discussed the possibility. That we would not be able to keep up.

With dead men and sluts. It's like trying to be born. And the bitch won't let me out. All the walls were brick. The ceiling is mud.

Still. There was little I could build. That he wasn't able to knock down.

She came to me with the formula. Eager to begin the process. She came to me empty handed. Hopelessly in love.

It's all the same I told her.

It was years ago. It was years from now.

We don't change. It changes us.

She always talked in exclamations points. Always wept in semicolons. The distance is measured in desperation she mused. As I batted a stray drop of menstruation away with my tongue. We're sceptic she said. Alone in ourselves. Stones eroding under the stroke of doubt. Lost in each other. Everything outside ourselves so massive. Genetically programmed. To mistrust. Even the most infinitesimal of pleasures. Enslaved by evolution to endure. The constant humiliation this flesh imposes upon us.

Commas, she snickered. Are for the weak. The Undecided. Who cannot bare to have an opinion. That pale agnostic love that turns women into whores. And penises into daggers.

I like the question mark. Better than all those others. It's fierce. And unapologetic as it satirizes the feeble pursuits of flesh. It makes statements that cannot be disputed. As it always leaves us with the choice. Whether or not to believe.

She scribbled the number in the sand. Her fingers rabid with the images. Of the sharp fangs on angels. The soft wings on demons. Partial windows. Open equations. Calculating men. She sighed quietly. Into the sweater he had bought for her. Sure it would fit someone. Just not her.

Counting backwards. A manic cartoon notepad. The pages flipping too fast. Reading the words out loud. To deaf listeners. As the army of numbers closed in on when. This machine was still sufficient. To explain. The gap. Between how close we've come and and how far away it's gotten.

It's only time she says. A sad magician. Capitalizing on on our weakest moments. To make everything disappear again.

What I want and what I need. That is where I lose them.

The bald dandelion sneezed again. Nothing left to lose. It's void dryly heaving. Choking on the broken key. Which would unlock the empty drawer. In the barren room. Her infectious skin. Illuminating the void briefly. So that I could see. The doorway that wasn't there.

Building her tower. Of tin crowns and impure Galahads. The sword in the stone missing. The grail not so holy after all. The long quests of false kings. Flirtatious Guinevere's in buxom bustled gowns. Poor Arthur's caught with a different sword in hand.

Wake god. Manipulate the corneas. Of heaven. Pour the key. In shivers of skin. Into faulty locks. On missing doors. Inside this room where I never was. Am. Trapped.

It was her. And she was reason enough. To lie. Say I knew the answer. When I'd not yet read the question. Strut. Like an emperor unaware his clothes are invisible. Infecting the future with glimpses from the past. This is. The sickness we keep coming back to cure.

And never do.

The lights come on just in time for the journey. Arranging the numbers. Touch like Morse code. Pecking at her openings. Releases the latch on her box. And all the ills fly out. Another perfect Pandora amongst thousands.

Leaves me with nothing.

Except this lingering hope.

Days without a sign. She stopped looking for where. And settled on why. Every season comes so abruptly. And why it always leaves so quickly.

She was drawing on the walls. In neon markers. She was playing the surgeon. Opening him up. Wondering where the parts should go.

She was flying her kite. With the help of the ocean. Paper wings strong enough. For a while.

She was plotting her life. In tepid sips. Warm drinks. On the lips of corpses. Dig me a grave. Remember. For once. This murder we committed. Those big eyes. Hot bulbs and resilient parking lots. Turn those spaces on again.

Emptier yet, for all the things that try to fill it.

The ladder too near to the window. The girl too close to the glass. Random. Like hopscotch. The failed games of children.

Now that we are old.

The vacuum moves through her. With bent fingers. Broken toes. A sublime radiation. Still born babies. Harsh abortions. Entropy thrills to the sound of breathing. In a vacuum. Dead things. Unaware that they are.

Each day in doses. Of foul medicine. Every wolf in grandmother's clothes. Such big teeth they have. In this vacuum. Time has culled. The barren limbs. Of trees that once bore fruit.

The question on the back of her neck. Asking again. The vacuum of her moans paralyzing him. The sun not far. The moon closer yet. Sour candies in shiny wrappers. Transport us into the vacuum of how. Inadequate are the numbers. How distant is the the path. Helpless fish biting on the hooks. The numbers cropping up everywhere. Dandelions in neglected grass. Easily navigating the vacuum.

That would have us forget.

She began the loop. Urgent with calculations. Pussy times penis squared. The end of the world.

One stone. Dropped. Into the river. Not to know where it would go. Vigilant orphans. On a quest. Back to the womb. The same as every dick. And each of its million sperm.

Life begins where it ends. And vice versa. The snake oils I have bought. May have made no difference in my condition. But, oh, the progress.

Swallowing the moon. In heavy shot glasses. Talking to the wolf. In hushed snarls. His fangs. More consequence than threat. As I bury the dead pigs. And inhabit their empty houses.

Rattling the sleeping child. Trying to wake her. Before the prince can plant his kiss. Submitting to the course. The fragile knit of time. Trying us on. Human sweaters. Insufficient. In this endless winter.

Gods found in the smallest corners. Weak enough to manipulate.

But it's already done. This mirror. Hot with our breath. Broken with our fists.

The empty balconies. Say her name. In soft winds through sharp windows. Cutting slowly. With a bent blade. The angel builds her house on the head of a pin. The demon in the thread. And we sew. A lifetime in each stitch. No clothes. Just curtains. For the windows. And stark attics. Whose doors never close. Gods come in fractions. The decimal interprets. flagrant dominoes.

Falling. One into the next. As we tend to do. A cascade. Of passions. Bigger than their vessels.

Gravity arrives in tightly sealed packages. The devil claims we've just met. But he's so familiar.

Prying off the doll's lips. Searching for the words inside her plastic skin. Giving her a name. Knowing these vagrant saviors. Beating on the fences. Where all that broken glass is kept.

Dance she said. Move with me. In ubiquitous tendrils. Of overlapping flesh. As if it matters. How close we've come. To falling moons. Or stubborn skeptics. In a symphony of science.

It's the same numbers in different arrays. Faulty locks in her panties. Letting the wrong ones in. Determined scavengers. Decipher the code. The photograph remains. Though the movie has ended. Dance with me she asked. Make me believe. For just a moment. That it wasn't wasted.

All those back doors I used to let you in. Skipping records. All those demons I dressed in your clothes. To keep them warm for when you'd come back again. The future I had never planned to visit. Playing songs. That get stuck in my head.

The autumn with its falling leaves. Speculating on the outcome. The needle in her skin marking the opening. The map. So many naked veins. Lead her to the source of the blood. The numbers. In humble funerals. The moments play the priest. As her final confession ensues.

Tell me a story. Lucifer whispered from his cage. Something fraught with loopholes for the innocent and pretty. For some cages there is no key to find. You must make it. From the lies that you've been told.

I have no claws. As you can see. Nor fangs or horns. I can't hurt you at all. But I can easily convince you that someone else is.

You dare to come back from the dead. Again and again. Stubborn mortals. Industrious weeds. Voracious virus. In the mountains. In the plains. In the cities. And across all the oceans.

Tell me stories. Of bone finding its way through the skin. In the petulant absurdities that are language. Quavering recognition. And incredulous forgetting.

I'm not evil. You make it so. Convenient loopholes in your sins. May save you from me, but not from yourself.

I'm not a time traveller. I'm not an astronaut. Space is too resilient to break. Memory too erratic to trust.

The loophole is in the marrow. Broken bones heal stronger.

Impatient portals. Usher us in. Other worlds. The same. Different. The gremlins with their tiny teeth. Chewing on the connections. That keep the window open long enough. That we can see them. There without us. Still the same. And different. A long series of numbers waiting for someone who knows what the next one is.

The mute lion. With nothing but quiet fangs to show. Slips on a monkey's eyes and begins to roar.

Just enough. She crooned as the poison found her lobe. The kite string tightening around her neck. His grip like graffiti on her skin. Brutal art beautifying a timid canvas.

Dovetails on the doorway. Keep the dimensions elastic. As she tries to measure the distance. Between.

Stealing herself from other dimensions. She tried. She tried so often. But never managed to change anything. Searching the world for weak spots. Finding them only within.

The bright science at her feet surrendering. To the dark paradox of strangers. I don't know you now. But someday I will. And it will be a mistake.

The arrows on the wall. Always pointing somewhere. I've seen before. Reluctant prophets with broken jaws. Wear their wisdom's in fraying threads and empty skulls.

The dead tell their stories. In strobe lights and torn skin. She looks in the hole. Sees what was never out there. She falls. Into it. Grateful for the coma that follows.

Nothing. No one. Can find her. She charts the dimensions of the void. Carefully. So many creations to judge. All of them liars. Time has sharp teeth. Manipulating it only makes them sharper.

The scorpion with his last sting. Wakes her up. To tell her she is dying.

The emissary is dead. The wormhole is collapsed. We are stranded in this world. The snake bites. The lion roars. She stares at the stars trying to determine how far it is.

Stalks the color. Close to the dark. Feeble altars on the lips. Go all ablaze. Tears perform. Their acrobatics. Eyes like fire escapes. Leave us stranded.

She whispers to the explosion. Dirty words and manic secrets. Afterward is such a lonely place. And it goes on for so long.

Fades the color. Lost in the sun. Snuck away in surreptitious murders. Bright crosses crucify the meat. Willing to die. So that the skin might prosper. She wakes me up. From my intricate dreams. To tell me. She has finally found. Her face.

Put it on I suggest. Through a tumble of irritation.

No. She answers. Quite contrary. What if it won't come off?

Stern creases in the fabric. Wear us small. Betray the fold. As this heat blossoms the flesh.

Skipping rope. Stones on the pavement. Waging the numbers. Bent down. On one foot. Double dutch. To breach the flailing hammock. The candy and soda. The dead have left for us. Too easy to sour.

Culling the vast stars. With a tiny comb. And broken barrettes. To arrange the soft ladders. Tepid windows. Looking out onto the funeral. Some would say is us.

Or else heroes that never mattered. Blunt capes compound the fever. While science struggles with the cure.

Cold windows repel the beauty of the sunset. The glass tells us what to want. But we don't listen. As the rain taps out its code upon it.

Daggers. And hydrogen bombs. Snicker with understanding. As she carves the letters into her skin. The ink stains the wounds. So that it won't forget. The charming paradoxes that prevent us from knowing.

When.

To breathe.

Going back in time. The dashboard on her shoulder. All lit up. With revolutions per minute. And open doors.

Teasing the atoms. Tickling the nucleus. Her skin. Like rabbits scurrying. To set the timer on the explosives. Those of us who can't build the bombs. Take pride in our ability to detonate them.

Sideways in time. I encounter myself. We have an earnest conversation. About proximity. To catalysts. And friends.

Her nightgown manipulates the empty circus. Between her legs. The cannons. The cages. The lions. All stern to the whims. Of flaccid dicks on their way to finding out their weakness.

Forward. I find myself dead. Again. That old witchcraft. In the limp of gods too frail to stand. Forward in time. Broken matchsticks. Supplicate the flint. Sparks abound, but nothing is ignited.

Sideways. So many me's. To contend. And all the monsters that have followed her into this transient utopia.

Sideways. like how the skin peels away form the flesh. When we pretend to taste it. Sideways. Like how sharp the bite is. When we search for North.

And never find it.

Going back in time. Wit a faulty compass and a handful of atoms. Finding myself. So much closer than I am now. To knowing. The ugly impostors. Who would wish to take our places.

When we find ourselves lost.

I was remembering. Not very well. Acerbic variables in the industrial of flesh. Dark windows. Against a generic world. The dogged constants. Withering of doubt. Their faces. Complicated equations. For a lifetime of solving. Each number into the next.

Patterns evolve the riddle. Coax the king. Out form behind his castle. To be captured.

I was remembering. Or at least I thought I had been. The devils I'd named after them. The gods I'd tricked. Into believing in us. Fractions. Maybe less. Of dying stars and cold dresses. As they ride up her thighs. Eager mustangs finally free of the spurs.

The earnest pinch of dead things. As they testify to life.

It's all too much to remember. When the future is this close.

I awoke the preacher from his bed. To tell him. I had seen god. He wasn't all that impressive. Feeble old man in his rocking chair. Giving stern orders to all the minute molecules responsible for this caustic dance. He never said he knew. Never tried to claim omnipotence. He was just a man. Trying to determine when we were.

Little ribbons on the fingers of the dead. Remind us. Of how. The casket looked empty. Waiting for the history. The pale reason that exemplifies survivors. The ghosts with their rattling chains can't understand the echo. Living skin detonates.

The wood thick. The picnic basket in her clutch. Through the woods. A long journey. Dismissing the obvious. Life. With its million handles to grab. Rolling over. Digging. Digging so deep. To find he dead.

Stern revisionists consort with the mind. Memory like ice cream. Melts into a sweet, sticky mess. The angular thrust of rote is softened. Circles. Move us forward. Keep us coming back home.

Contrarians convalesce at the apex of the process. The eyes. The ears. The fingers. Parasites. Still sucking on the dry veins. The Adam. The Eve. Heavy with all the conditions on paradise. The scars on her knees. Telling stories. About how far she's come.

It happened. It was. At least then. It feigned the order. Shuffled the discourse. Worms cut in half. Two worms now instead on just one. The timeline compensates for all of our indiscretions. The doorbell rings. But there's no one there. Not that she can see.

Still, she let's them in. Listens. As they tell their story. The truth is mutable she confesses. Manipulative even. You're not lying. You've just come too soon. I won't be that person until years after you don't care who she has become.

I'll never be better than I am right now. But we both know it'll get much worse.

You are the future. I am the past. But there's the paradox. To ever be you. To come back. To find us. I must be lost.

Parts of the apple were on her dress. Little red aliens. With the lipstick on their eyelids. Nothing unusual. Other than the ladder at her window. The little doorway in the glass. Flaunting its hinge. Buttons. So many buttons to press. To open it.

Try this on she said. Your old skin. Good. Now. Show us. How you escaped it.

Step inside. See how big it is. Don't you recognize yourself. Same person. Different lies.

An abundance of wolves in cocktails gowns. Thwart the celebration. Don't you sleep the same aas you are now. With your eyes closed. Your breathing shallow. Vulnerable to the softest invasion. Thoguhts all athread. So easily broken.

Little matchsticks. Their sulfur heads coaxing the stone. From inside of missing windows.

Try this on she said. Ragged cancers. Mundane addictions. The placeboes of tired flesh. How does the future fit?

Some days later. After her crash. She was wandering the empty star ship. With a bit of earth in her hand. All the dead laughing at her. From within their rigormortis smiles.

Gone away. In frenzy of molecules. Not lost at all. Components of a greater death.

She was discussing with the martian. How the phone booth had gotten her there. A hiccup of physics. A vomit of math.

There was nothing to explain. Accidents and all.

She had been waiting for the bus. To take her to somewhere else. It arrived eventually she had to assume. Though she was not a passenger.

Who was in her seat. She could only guess. Where it went. She suspected. Was somewhere she would never see.

Rubbing the lamp. Streetlights confident enough. To let me walk. Alone this way. Taking the levers. Arranging them. The cogs nervous with the implication. Making her wishes.

To the genie. In modest funerals. Listening for the dead. Deaf children still dancing after the music has stopped.

Partial emphasis on the pieces. Thwarts the progress. Of antagonized molecules. She says the numbers. Out loud. To hear the thought. Dense in the choke of the darkness. To lubricate the devil. As his viscous wings flap hard inside her.

Force the curve. Train the line. With absolute precision. Sleep on the brick. Wake to the cotton. As if time can be translated by wont of touch. The barrel fills. The rain comes down. In surprises of flesh. Too alike counting. Out loud.

Snakes in the parchment. Ink of venom. Solve the heart. A series of riddles. Taken from the lips of god.

Pulling the lever. On the tower of ink in her head. Stiffening the arm. As the stretcher opens. To catch. The girl. Who isn't falling.

What happened happened. What I am still remembers.

The hours on her wrists exploding. Little ticks. Growing fat on the moments. Only blood can believe. Her devotion to the the paradox changes nothing.

Platforms on the pitchfork. Burn the skin brighter still. Little vagaries. Absolve the conundrum. Of absent skin. Working the hours with a sturdy whip. Carving gods from devils' bones.

Spoiled by the storybook. Agile Snow White topples the prince. In fits of dwarfs. With poison apples in their hands.

The villains grow obese. The heroes mutate. Awed by the vein she's left open.

Shotguns in an infant's crib. Accuse the mother. Free the woman.

Liars atop the speeding train. Follow us where we are going. The tunnels save us. Bullets in the baby's brain. Waiting for the sun to shine again.

As I negotiate the constant. With all wolves still intact. The fang. The claw. The little pigs. The mark. Still on the wall. Where once was the clock.

The bird on my windowsill. The liar in my pajamas. The variable. Breathing hard. To keep up with the constant. The answers like raindrops. The question full of holes.

Work quickly she warned as the sun slumbered deeper into the horizon. I have these words. All these words. And nothing to do with them. I have beggars in my empty glasses and liars in the full ones.

All my dreams have cataracts. I try to sleep, but it doesn't come. All my time machines take me backward. Too far into the past. Where I don't exist. And I can't touch anyone.

The future says it isn't there.

Her bladder ruptures. and we are dispersed. Dead fish bones and sand. Wheezing over the ocean. In torn dresses. And seldom friends. She tears the page from the magazine. Scribbles on the flat photograph. Curves. And convexes. Anything fluid. The black seeping through to all the other pages.

She writes in red. In bullets and bottles. She writes in black. Saving up her Cinderellas. Her dense bones make her wings useless. Against the envy gravity has. For anyone not afraid to fall.

She tries on her claws. For the second time. And finds them duller than she remembers. Numbers. Flesh. Variables. Constants. The songs she listens to as she travels. The ones she doesn't hear.

The future her explains the catastrophe with fluid fingers. The present her pounds her fists. Pretending to understand. When they met. Or if they ever have.

The physics of if bend the dial as she presses the button. To find herself. To find herself. To find herself.

To find herself. Before she forgets.