Tuesday 9/27/2011 11:47:00 PM

She revels in the texture of hours. As she chews on them with the same fervor as any addict. Heavy boxes. Full of nothing. That taste so good.

The purchase of morality is usually on credit. Little sticks. Big drums. No rhythm. No one listens. But anyone can dance.

An eager rodent. Tail atwitch. A dirty princess. Licking the pea.

There are dancers. Minute ghosts on the edge of her eyelids. That die and are born again with each blink. Manic witches with their heads boiling in the cauldron. Crippled insects in the shadow of the toad's kiss.

She dances to the creek of sagging bridges. Too far is as close as she's ever been. It's all music to her. The slow decay of skin that delineates her world. The pieces in which it arrives. The millions of positions they might take. The picture they could almost make.

The scrape of touch. Extracting life from graves. The inherent duality of want. That it might be possible to take and give in equal portions. She tries on again. Those borrowed moments that once let her live. As though she were the same.

They still seem to fit.

Saturday 9/24/2011 11:36:00 PM

Open windows. Teasing the wind. Long arms grabbing at the raindrops. Needles dripping with the perfect dose of poison. To make me just sick enough to live.

Nervous lips taste the smirk in the glass. As it breathes another bit of gravity into her veins. Despair's gentle monster crawls into her bed. And quietly devours. The person she thought she was.

It rains so much louder than it used to. And I listen much too closely. To the stutter of the hours as each one is choked away. By a relentless series of tomorrows. Everything grows so old and tired, yet nothing ever ends.

Open windows. Reach out for the rain. For proof that gravity is still there.

Thursday 9/22/2011 12:24:00 AM

tremors. soldiers. blackness.

it was early when i woke him. it seemed cruel, but necessary. we needed more than could be found in the dark. and he'd already slept for so many years. it's the disadvantage of youth. wanting to know everything. including the bad. it's a paradox of the flesh. that it cannot feel until it's been touched.

he was heavy with so many variants that the constant fell away. he wasn't one to search for it.

in tremors. and quakes of skin. whelping soldiers. guided by hungry rifles. and miles of blackness. killed as best they could. the harmless monsters we blamed for everything.

he was empty with the reasons he'd kept. and there wasn't anything left in the world that could solve that dissonance. i was just as helpless as he was. only on the other side of the glass.

deafened by a war bigger than both of us. blinded by a mirror reflecting too strong. faces we hadn't worn in years.

tastes. trials. muscles. nerve ends. priests far too tempted. consumed by an inferno of their own sermons. a tower of guilty want. always leaning closer. gentle satans submit their sins. to the power of loneliness. grateful for the freedom surrender offers.

Sunday 9/18/2011 11:58:00 PM

turned by the corners. touching the bottom. faces drawn on yellowed paper. torn. petals from her cheeks. folding. creased. strangers. in the blunt pencil strokes that love tends to draw with. and me, fresh out of paint.

she conspires with the woodsman. to erase the breadcrumbs that led to the wolf. and the candy house. where the witch was cooked by the children. dead is dead. and I'm in no mood for a picnic.

sometimes the lie tells us. and we are its victim. all of us monsters. destined to blindness. some sooner than the rest.

the scrape of the hours. pressing against the glass of her skin. bargaining for entry. back into a life that no longer exists. the pantomime of sex. bargains for her body. words are forfeit. in the silence between them. she draws with her eyes. and erases with her fingers.

all the beautiful hurt this world offers to covet. tall bridges to to jump from and the icy waters that beckon from below.

spoiled by the colors. she still remembers. but can no longer see. black ink befriends her. like the quick venom from an angry snake.

she captures each raindrop as it falls. holding it hostage. listening to the squeal of hungry pigs gorging themselves on her shit. a proper feast. hard with sound and fury. delicate with sickness.

the blade came so softly. that she had no idea she was bleeding. nor was she disappointed.

Saturday 9/17/2011 11:32:00 PM

close enough to hate. distant enough to love. the moment came and went. pausing only long enough to let me know that it had been. and was over.

rain on the sidewalk. erasing where we'd been. fingerprints on the glass. exposing who'd been looking in. pigs in tuxedos made of mud. as dirty as they want to be.

she's a soft doll. knots in her neglected hair. hating the comb come to tame her. she's a gurgling predator. throat slit. claws still out. immersed in the pursuit of death. we're always young so long as we don't need the things that want to have us. only growing old as they tire of the hunt.

delicate chambers. marked by the passage of choices. slender strings. move the scenery. as we fail to progress. little hiccups in the light. bends in the paper. as she traces. with a stout pencil. the thin outlines. that grow steadily darker. at both the edges and the center.

strangers on their velvet stages. peel away her paper flesh. crush her plastic bones. exposing the grim mechanics of a desperate woman.

and the men who require such ugly incentives.

Friday 9/16/2011 12:02:00 AM

The quiet contradiction of rain. As it falls silently against open windows. She chews on her words. Corn syruped sandpaper. In the dark it's never too late. There's no reason to sleep. She just keeps trying. To swallow those stones.

A rush of guilty pleasure. As she bites down on the boulder. That's gone too soon. The wet kiss of the wind. As the storm picks up in potency. Pulling on the curtains. Sucking the fabric into the million tiny holes in the screen that separates stranger and fiction.

Flattened clothes on the floor. Heavy with the whispers of when. Skin and bones were still dense enough. To give shape to all those ghosts.

Wednesday 9/14/2011 11:47:00 PM

Fractions. The queasy stroke of the numbers. Just before her eyes close. The waiting. For the decimal. As if. I'll ever be whole. The subtleties of villains. Pencil sketches on torn paper. The ego of the artist. Determined to create something from nothing.

Chameleons in the color of her cheeks. Play the pastels.

The future is a devious distraction. From now.

So many numbers. I'm still counting. How many beds I had to sleep in to find the right one.

all this despair burns to smoke. the body is just a chimney.

9/14/2011 12:10:00 AM

comparisons. how far i can see. how close i was. the calm of surrender. the liberation of confession. taut sheets. crisp and white. catch the blood. days. years. months. screws. stripped of every thread. spinning in the hole. useless without friction. the huff of the machine. as it fails to move us.

the void flourishes. loneliness. wild and urgent. howling alley cats. hissing at the darkness. as they sense the dogs coming closer.

functions. the stale of the numbers. ripe with the murder of touch. confession. self. in steps. hate. both a gradual poison. and a tedious cure.

the hours. the months. the years. barter their diseases. a sour wealth. she sweetens with wilted flowers.

contours of the ghost's cheek. incredulous mountains. erupt into volcanoes. chafe against this rabid null. that came so quietly. and dared to grow. so much larger than everything else.

Sunday 9/11/2011 12:08:00 AM

gave away what i once was. to an alien in a badly torn mask. it kinda looked like me.

snapped the twig in half. threw it on the fire.

as if there was nothing between then and now. except empty highway. rich with skid marks. angry tortoises. and beaten hares. telling stories no one would ever believe.

ran plenty far, but seldom fast enough. to illustrate any moral.

pulled too often. too hard. on the cord. on gravity's switch. was never able to turn it off. not held down. weighted just enough. to make it hard. to get up.

tied the knots. in the necks of lifeless dolls. hating gods I'd never believed in.

a life wasted. untangling the strings on puppets. that have no stage on which to dance. no audience to grieve. for all that they've lost.

dirty pennies. the copper grins of feeble monsters. heavy nickels. the impotent science of so many drugs. that promise to kill us. but rarely deliver.

i argued with gravity. and won.

wish i hadn't.

Tuesday 9/06/2011 12:42:00 AM

the wolf winks. devout with blood.
and other dying things.

the rabbit growls. repentant with hate.
and pious with killing.

the stones in her throat weigh her down.
eager to change things that can not be.

the noise is a comfort. the stutter of poisons that must manipulate beautiful ovens. thick with the stench of burning witches. and the chafe of skin as it pulls away from the bone and the muscle. because the skeleton has begun to listen.

she is corrupted by silence.

Friday 9/02/2011 12:31:00 AM

there are storms enough. for this drowning that I covet. sight is just a blemish on an otherwise blind contrition. a heavy backlog of skin. still to digest. the more I chew on it, the harder the swallowing becomes. i used to be so hungry. so ravenously young. a rabbit vaguely teasing the greyhounds. unable to imagine being caught. i used to be in color. but now i'm only shades of grey. an array of empty winter coats. nothing inside to keep warm. a mermaid confined in an ocean of piss. doesn't drown. can't. but wishes she could. a stumble. a moment. a lifetime in just seconds. one step too far trapped in cement. the wolf still in her bed. taking little bites. so she doesn't notice how much is missing. tease the actors. as the curtain closes. the moment barely there. determined to lie as much as it can.

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