numbers. templates. paradigms for culpatory conditions. origami swans. their necks broken.

the bulk correlation divisible by the mass of conjunction. candy hearts. all their words rubbed off.

permutation. obvious follies. hypocrisy in prevalence. rusted zippers. on the backs of men.

ambulatory resonance. impatience. perfunctory incisions. simple scissors cut the atom.

places weep. sparse drops of rain. taste the glass. in uneven cuts. that separate moment and momentum. windows sharp. peel the scabs. that differentiate hope and madness.

proximity plays it song. a weak minstrel with a sour smile. laughs out loud how close we are. deep in deserts frequented by ghosts.

she walks in apologies. kneeling mountains. and plastic suns. wait for the world to stop. are lost each night it continues to function.

she fucks in wishes. Genies trapped in their lamps. lace panties torn by fat asses.

Pencils with no erasers left. Scribble answers to questions no one asked.

The world is small. like we are. And it counts out loud. Like we do. So as not to lose track. Of long division. And balloons without strings. All the possibilities. That blot out what is real.

yellow. green. blue. colors spill from her like death. there is no life. only beginning. middle. end. a violent short story. told by despots and orphans.

bridge. traitor. champion. they are all the same. a pace from paradise. miles from satisfaction.

the road travels her. in fits of distance. both brief and bright. broken thumbs teasing the trigger. on empty rifles. the shot rings out. as loud as it is impotent. a scream of skin. on a collision course with touch.

episodes of choice. flirt with how. red. black. brown. there is no living. just minutes stolen. from youth's tightly clenched fist.

time sickens her. an intrinsic illness. her head suffers the symptoms. her body feigns a cure.

broad wires pull on limbs. thick lights attempt to conceal. the illusion is stalwart. piano keys striking broken cords. continue to play their song. the truth is lenient. wet paper dolls still hold on to each others' hands.

real is relative. an army of candles. consumed by a single flame.

suspended elements. rage. tumble. boom. gloat. in lengths of blunder.

peaches. plums. wisdom. everything begins in the dirt. and also ends there.

long ropes. short branches. keyholes in the atoms. smaller than the smallest piece. are still bigger than us.

notes on the princess. still hide in the pea.

puzzles. places. when. empty dungeons. inherit their prisoners. from dusted vampires. and vanquished demons. yet all of those dead monsters are always born again. in the relentless pace of hunger. as it stutters through the trenches in this skin.

the switch stays off. the bulbs remains dark. though there is friction enough. to ignite the spark.

moments. the squeal of colliding atoms. as they form the worlds we imagine exist. heavy tomes. rich with stories. of seldom heroes. and the gods they trusted. would keep counting. after we'd lock track of them.

needles. knots. thread. humble with the chaos. of changes. armor. swords. castles. swallowed up in the turbulence of the math. a sequence of numbers. infinite with ends.

places. folds. conditions of when. small shadows. in the clench of the mountain. try to sound big.

the cavity. churns. its echo dissonant to its depth. the wind murmurs. as it seizes the edge.

one pill is poison. the other is life. they taste the same. they look alike. they are identical. in every way. except. one kills you quickly. the other one is slower.

gardens grow. wolves growl. clouds weep. faces to try on. tasting the sweet hunger of strays. swallowing the bitter sate of urgent skin. slivers of glass. to measure our progress.

she said she would remember. the way back.

through the tall trees. that block the heaven's generous maps. through the thick mud. that steals the evidence of her steps. but none of it looks familiar. and all her breadcrumbs have been eaten. by hungrier creatures.

do I know you? she asked. from her side of the mirror.

which of us is the reflection? the other one wondered.

there's no real difference. the glass professed.

dud matchsticks. that refuse to ignite. torn treasure maps. for sunken islands.

when was I here? she questioned. asleep in the folds of her obsession. ugly little duckling. mortgaged to the cost of its feathers.

how thin is the edge. the friction of ghosts. fatally agile. against the haunt of surrender. the delicate moan of submission. scrapes hard. through. the viscous treason of when.

All my voices betray. The slick of distance convinces angels. Broken ribbons and hollow boxes. Are a stairway to heaven. All my faces are only reflection. Fat parasites gorging on a stale feast of flesh.

wide awake. alive in the impotence of her rage. used matchsticks. pretending the fire.

Mirror. Mirror. She whispers.

Am I there yet?

small openings. long tunnels. the end boasts. popcorn thighs and candy trousers. the flesh of witches upon which to feast.

the dead. the deader. the difference between them teeth. the bite of apathy. the chew of starvation. open boxes. thick with nothing. a marathon of paper cuts. a ceremony of bandages. no blood.

quiet trains. gentle lies.

the end of the world comes in blinks. a silent ambush. slowly going blind. first everything far disappears. and eventually. even the things closer.

the war wears her. in ill-fitting sweaters. in jeans too tight. she dances. to the music. of absent lovers. a rabbit racing against a tortoise. the battle befriends each soldier. eager orphans. nursed on the teat of the gun.

big funerals. small caskets. the cadavers try us on. the dizzy of open dresses. the lilt of tensing zippers. at the bottom of the rope. the end of the world in hiccups.

a tense recital of skin. as she insists the stage.

small storms possessed with big floods.

the room. dense. with the ceremony of skin. blunt hounds. eager to fetch.

touch is a cumbersome companion. a soft clay stick figure. struggling with the bricks in its chest. a drought in the mind. resentful of the flood in our flesh.

the room. crude walls drawn. in torn dresses and broken toys.

a thirst. that's never quenched.

a rumble of choice. a quake of contrition. time like feast. taste like famine. life a poison.

she chews on the petals. dead flowers. fevered treasure maps. the calm of the paradox betrays her indifference. curtains drawn on dark windows. the room. still certain in its hunger.

a story told. often repeated. empty fists. spoil the glass. pointing. content to look in. carelessly. browsing. purchasing its depth. for a place to drown.

terminals. elements. soft blades. broken by hard flesh.

they are drawn by her. in thin outlines. she rarely colors in. candy hearts missing their text. though mostly she traces. trying to imagine. how big the picture migh have been. were the margins not so narrow.

flower petals in dirty pockets. finite constructs choke. Trying to swallow. Their tiny portion of the world.

atoms. quarks. particles. naked science. blind observers. Taint the results. By being there.

faces. simple puzzles. impossible to solve. memory. every answer creates a new paradox. she draws on them in permanent marker. and leaves the cap off.

gelatin. the fate of discarded bones. to make dense these flippant ghosts. that frequent the thin membrane between self-awareness and insanity.

warm sheets. thunder through her skeleton. empty locomotives. lost without the guidance of skin. cold pillows. work their math. long division. remainders. paper knives stabbing the wind.

pieces of an infinite world. blame the puzzle inside her.

little black ducklings. in between tuxedos. dance naked for their documentary. ugly is the new beautiful.

she digs her tunnels. narrow passages through the dense oblivion of time. counting backward from zero. until there is something positive.

she picks at the gear shift. teases the clutch. pleasure is a highway. skin a vehicle. the distance between too great to measure.

they point at her. long bent fingers. sticks and stones. left in the grass. After the windows are broken. And the bruises faded. she was yesterday. long needles. stuck on knotted threads. the wind and the rain rushing in. while the years escape.

simple equations. the arithmetic of lonely men. like checkerboards. Sliding bishops Trusting the rook to finish the slaughter. the war is fought in the squares. not the men.

dry matches. confess her. in fires yet to come.

she burns.

quietly.

until there is nothing left.

patterns. soldiers. clay fists. foil daggers. forward. closer.

we look behind us and the prison is open. freedom. we move forward. nearer to escape. the bars constrict. keeping us in our cages.

the nervous arithmetic of lovers. calculates the division of pleasure. each moment is a whore. flirting with the causality of contrition.

nameless gods. powerless deities. pissing out their puddles of heaven.

no eyes. just touch. to draw this room. bend the glass. to build these walls. an array of paper dolls. adrift in arteries of sober.

the edges trust. misleading equations. that we appear close. fools the tendons, but not the numbers. the skeleton is soft. to compensate for the rigid math. we move. forward and back. the repetition serving as the only constant as the variables erupt.

she scribbles in crayon. tender veins on plastic arms. like the wilt of drugs to seldom hearts. she marks in ink. heavy bones in hollow flesh. the thunder of want weak against the whisper of touch.

hours pushing forward. as the years constrict. time's bitter solvent. undoing all evidence of her progress.

so small. it hurts.

she swims in a river of stones. no waves. no bottom. she just floats. all of her momentum stolen by its density.

one skin falls away. she lives for a moment. before another quickly grows over.

her scent. the allure of her chase. her skin is flower petals. sick with a swarm of bee stings.

there is reach. fast and sharp. the grip of darkness's bony hand. holds her head. as she drifts. in her heavy gravel ocean.

she swallows the predators. small angles become her. the anatomy of purgatory is illustrated in her vagina.

small crayons. drawing on paper arms. lost with their cardboard faces.

her taste. deaf parasites. dancing to the symphony of her flesh. a frenzy of zippers. quick to bite closed. just as quick to open again.

i could crawl. over their graves. tiny tempests raging in the microcosm of when. the satire was more than this thin blanket of flesh. across the the voids. dragging eternity behind me. a little mud on my palms. a few scrapes on my knees. otherwise unchanged.

a teapot left to boil on the stove. screeching for years. in a vacant kitchen.

i could dig. picking at the edges with a broken spoon. drawing worlds in fading markers. confessions. stubborn wormholes. Let the strays in. To shit on the steps.

Drowning myself in the pretext of measured margins. gathering my dirt. into handsome piles. defined by the paradoxes. that correlate want and decision.

a single mosquito bite. one small sting. confirms every itch.

the soil spreads between her fingers. the flaunt of conduction. the parody of inertia. numbers stern with the promise of skin. time dense with the weight of touch. struggles to move on our brittle crutches.

she bites her tongue. the years released filling her cheeks. turning them shades of blue and red. ripened. bargaining with gravity. for one more moment. like fruit too long on the tree.

say your name. with eyes like bark. a voice like leaves. a forest of one. in an infinite winter.

gravity's pale combustibles fail to spark. her fall is mute. a stale revision. of a hollow scream.

draw your map. with hands of glass and lead thumbs. a singular path. in a universe full of places.

chew on the engine. motion a constant. forward or back the question. threads of skin. whispers of combustion. jolt the turbines. muscle. memory. desire. all the components function. still the machine as a whole. only idles.

trust the moments. variables. that drive the differential. confess. concede. provide the inputs. accept their division. their outcomes creates us.

the empty jacket. the shadow it casts on the chair near the window. it pulls on the curtain with zippered fingers. metal teeth bite down hard on the void. the light plunges inside. fracturing the glass where she kept all her colors.

she chokes and gasps. overcome by a deluge of instances. soft strands of math bore their nails. skin like hammers. drive them in.

years assemble. in crooked ladders and low ceilings. the destination is built. but the journey collapses.

instances. between the planes. curious thieves examine the empty space. arcs. beyond the curve. footless rabbits pace on their stumps.

pebbles scrape her palm. as she throws for her turn. simple games. complicated rules.

suckling pigs. in the shadow of angry sows. butchers' blades. dull, but effective. very little blood. plenty of squeals.

ends. neither the sum. nor the parts. the product of zero is always zero.

vertices. trip over each other. the shapes press onward. the infinity of flesh becomes her. small steps closer to the edge. a tickle of gravity to send her over.

a quiet drizzle. vagaries in the measure of touch. discrepancies. in the weight of when. the fractured arithmetic of redemption. always has remainders.

wounded monsters. don't bleed. but the pain is there.

the shuffle. the shudder. blood's daily marathon. stretches and tugs. at the ogres asleep in those distant corridors. so weak. so tender. more frail than any victim. since this puzzle fell apart.

skin's thick cape. flutters in the wind. one last desperate leaf at the beginning of winter. still feigns that its tree isn't dead.

fragments. puzzle pieces play their images. whispers of when. rhythms so alike how. the whole once echoed. frantic and diligent. soft eyes drawing their stalwart maps. in the dense murk of missing skins.

you are here. all the signs confess. where you always are. where you've never been. the difference between them only a fraction of a kiss.

he's fragile now. and so far away. an ocean. in the distance. blindly crashing into the stern arms of the darkness. each repetition breaking him into smaller shards.

she scratches. still filling in. the outline deeply embedded in her. chasing the colors that made it real once. but they run so much faster than she can.

slipping inside those old dresses. she finds comfort in the stiff hem of the paradox.

that when she was at her smallest they barely fit.

static. transition. barren trees. bony fingers grabbing at the sky.

choices. temptation. old women. studying the blurry maps drawn in their heads.

i reason with the numbers. though they seldom reason with me. long distances expressed in fractions. a lifetime down to a decimal place.

fragments. division. the tinny flush of surrender as the drug finds her center. the angles within. so sharp. even the math is lost.

the hours. stray dogs. monarchs of skin. smelling the scars. gorging on the diseases.

rapid. profuse. feral. the time machine coughs. spitting us out into a world where we hardly belong. its engine foul with the madness of choice.

a paradise thick with the corpses of strangers. it breaks down. stranding us here.

in this dank garden. caught between who we were and who we are.

envious shadows chase their tails. the wall. the window. the stairs. a perpetual conundrum. their proximity paradox. their relationship crucial. to everything she is.

measured in potency we are infinitesimal. burning matches briefly molesting dead leaves.

she sleeps on her side. so she can see it when her eyes first open. the breadth of the world. as it weakly blinks into existence.

the lion and the monkey. they bicker over how long the winter is.

the cold just listens.

she sleeps on the edge of the bed. so she can be close to falling.

the nail and the hammer. argue over the reality of hell and heaven. while the princess and the witch. debate the distance between them.

the cold just listens.

consumed by the quiet. soft numbers too close together. the sequence expands. multiplying and dividing. until all integers are captured. the delicate of the addition. coaxes her sympathy for the sickness. the flagrant of the subtraction burdens with suspicion. that the cure is only a gentler incarnation of the virus.

the moment lives and dies by these repeating patterns. One. Twelve. Seven. Four. The sequence confounds. Beginnings obese with ends. Flesh is numbers. Touch is algebra. I confess that I can't solve.

stranded on the bridge. testing those devils. as their claws attempt the math.

choices. like wet paper. drowning in words i can't make out.

limbless dolls. Naked and all too patient. Spoil their plastic skins defining zero. in the only way that they can.

By the shiver of a cigarette as it illuminates an empty bedroom. where strangers fitfully sleep. In an epiphany of zeroes. molesting dolls in numbers that remain.

stale faces. rotten fists. missing eyes. where they once saw me. absent lips. in the void where the words used to pretend. in their world. in hers, his, ours and mine. it takes a massive army of lies to defend just a small patch of flesh.

i used to sleep on the mountain tops. tickling the bellies of the hunting hawks. now i just lay awake. staring at empty skies.

the hour stretches. bends to comply. because i fell asleep inside my time machine with the motor running. i'm always there. i never was. the difference merely desire. i assumed the cat dead inside the box. until i took off the lid and got scratched.

then it stopped working. left me stranded on this island. too tired to erect a new bridge. too ugly to persuade the math to give me a new passage.

the monsters know the choices. tandem tiers revolve the axis. skin like warfare. eyes like machine guns. and right as frivolous as grenades. everything is stark. blindness is my gift. as i reach out. not knowing what i'll grab.

my stories bark their treasons. in fits of when and stabs of how. wire saws across the throats of soldiers. as the war chokes forward. and its battles sink harder into my bones.

i'm only a fraction. eyes like decimals. defer to the whole. a bit of friction on the gears. as the machine shifts. time races. touch surrenders. a tapeworm in the gut of the universe. swimming in its shit.