doorways. memory's chapped thighs. spread. telling their stories in melted ice cream and vacant chairs.

places. words. lies. friction coefficients. velocity still undetermined.

she solves for gravity. though she knows that's working backward. and distance is still an unknown parameter. she assumes there must be a constant. though her need is the only evidence.

the weight confronts her. the density of skin betrays her bones. Lips like a zephyr. Eyes like a tornado. Every intimacy chafed raw. By the vigor with which we approach it.

stagnant lions. feral lambs. the curious commodity that once was her.

spent.

turn the corner of the flower. must find the corner first. the severe and isolated angle. that speaks only after it has been heard.

her stage eclipses her dialogue. the crude rudiments of touch. fail. as both a bridge and a measure. her scene echoes. soft footsteps prick the stage. pin holes in mountains. a rowboat upon the ocean.

wearing her eyes backward. she looks at the choices. the smothering depths which inspire. both greatness and despair. she searches the mire. for the arrogant fulcrums in this dubious balancing act.

creasing the paper. drawing an invisible map. the child. the woman. a blade of grass vying for a single ray from the sun. the science of life. in a panic of whispers and stabs.

what she wants overtakes her. the grunt of decision spoils the garden. what she was is lost.

pieces of a mirror afraid to look.

listen to the vein. silent curtain. deaf bridge. between need and want. critical stranger. under the skin.

if i could build a time machine i wouldn't need to. that is the paradox.

a bite of shame. a chew of submission. barefoot on cold ceramic. the sway of the tiles underfoot. as the Earth exhales.

position is relative. duration inherent. the wind bends as she walks into the storm. a perpetual clock. Always at the beginning. Always at the end.

the hours manipulate. tensile puzzles. beat the sand. manias of mortality. sway to the music of addicts. in floods of ink. in wrinkles of when. all that now is real refracts. is splintered under the scrutiny of distance's dead stare.


she rights her tilting dolls. envying their plastic limbs. frozen fingers. still cradling what was never there.

I have this time machine.

I just don't know what to do with it.

on broken broomsticks. in dusty closets. the pantomime. the earthworm. naked without the soil. context shifted. rhythm compensates. we don't know why. it's this easy to forget. we just trust that the changes will improve us.

the paradigm and the stimulus collude. the results are near. the observer is distant. and nothing else can be accurately measured. where we began. where we've ended up. the path that took us from there to here. gradations on the faulty scale. flesh uses to determine the weight of touch.

the lie will tell itself. all we have to do is let it.

moments manifest. objectifying spontaneously around the situations we've created for them. rain falls up to the sky. choices construct their questions. we go backward. stealing the butterflies from caterpillars. calling them defective.

ugly. ambient conduction. fluid entropy. solvent to the flaws of strangers. reacting to the litmus of lovers. an empty experiment. proving nothing.

blank lips sweat the lies. perspective. the smallest cuts leave the biggest scars. texture. the friction of silence. her last bridge. wheezes. hiccups above. roiling waters hardly charmed. by the pontifications of humbled madmen. the swagger of their empty dicks.

arrogant pauses. mete out the addiction. in trembles so soft she barely knows how much she needs what she's never had.

portals. the fever of when. sickens her pursuit of tomorrow. with past infections.

it's clay. we are. spinning. sticky. malleable. dense. turned into and turned by. and turning with. the orbit of lazy moons. shaped. strained. convinced. that there is a definition. for the things we cannot name.

spies. soldiers. flags. the breaths between battles become the definition of the war. we are winning. because all else is lost.

long strands confess their knots. sweet candy houses bargain with orphans. soft tangles keep lovers near. a lengthy trail of breadcrumbs behind. a longer path ahead.

skin like levers. catapults. weapons. immune. to the strum of gravity. as it orchestrates her fall.

first came the body. frantic with flesh. an abundance of protons. clowns twisting skin into absurd shapes. an autopsy of emotions.

the prison absolute. the crime mutable. the atom excited. the child asleep.

then come the sobs. saline life rafts. to decorate the drowned. the ritual. the compulsion. to love what has been lost.

sour fruit. gives it a name. impotent predator. spoiled by its former fangs. the rush of regret. too quiet. scribbles its notes. at the base of her spine. infects each step. every taste enumerated in the telemetry of her flesh. small holes. expanding. a microscopic choke of darkness evolving to blot her out.

the hours bend to fit. eager monsters. wagging tongues. dull claws. artists carving life from the stones that mark the corpses.

the division is long, though the moment is brief.

then came the ghost. the nucleus. exposed. empty for lack of its mask. futile. inert. haunting. the same places it always had. flesh or ether. no difference. the particles unchanged. the rain. in steady downpours. each drop smaller than the last.

static. pale abundance. screams at the actors. is silence for the audience. she told me to wait and i did. wait. high on the eventual. sober with the circumstance. her Pinocchio danced. wooden and awkward. as the play went on without us. a sheer curtain all that separated broken toys from paradise.

an old wizard. lacking in magic. drew the outline. a courtesy of touch. purchased in haste.

she tried to wake him. warm matches. tease the memory of a fire. too weak to give it life. she tries on the math. touch in long division. remainders desperate to recover their fractions. time colors in the gentle farts of butterfly wings.

we are lost. in the stench. of all the places that took us close. but failed to let us in.

names. like chalk. erased, but hardly gone.

she would stay awake. to reason with the numbers. giving each one a name. stubborn little pigs. blaming the wolf for the flaws in their houses.

faces. on the tips of her fingers. spilling. slipping away. a cascade of years. disappearing into a long series of unresolved equations.

flesh. like thread. choices like needles. lost in the seamless revisions time has imposed.

he would talk. like no one could hear. but everyone was listening. content in the slow suicide of his loneliness. not ready to die. but more than willing to let it happen.

tomorrow was ours. bought and paid for. except for the fact that it doesn't exist.

we are desperate. we take what we can. and lie about the rest.

hares racing the tortoise.

whispering fairy tales shouting at their ghosts.

distance she's determined is measured in trust rather than years.

vultures. labia. elective skins.

elements of when. molecules coalescing. dominant juxtapositions. tear her apart. to fit inside. give her a name. no one else calls her.

the math is in her thighs. the result is anywhere else.

you there she whispers. forgive my blindness. words are despots. sight is a stranger. let me feel you. touch your face. so that i may see. what physiology neglects.

it's all pretend until the we break each other. shovels. hammers. picks. fingernails on skin. tearing open. hollow boxes.

love is for women and liars. she says. adamant in her convictions. the rest of us have only that one moment. when the math was pure. and the numbers still belonged to us.

dandelions. suffering the breath of a wish.

frail gods. choking on their Edens.

outlines. needles. faces. the deviance of numbers is not to be contained. she is found in her lostness. she is loud in her silence. a proton. teasing the template of physics. with short numbers and long division.

paper plates. a feast of conditions. betray my hunger. the more i swallow the greater the intensity of my starvation.

rubber bands. plastic forks. spoil their lovers. with choices. close. haunted by the pale suicide of a stranger's touch. or distant. content beside them in the solitude of the grave.

he says i was. but i don't remember her. child. writhing in trembles of touch. a circus of skin. eager to impress.

i can recall the clowns. and the animals. time travels through her. a dull dagger. drawing its picture in blood. i recognize the monsters. but still don't know their names.

terminal. temporal. contrite. stillborn hours. premature years.

i watch the night undress. stitch by stitch. its skin is exposed. blank. oedipal. dead particles. excited by broken atoms.

she asks when. i answer now.

a redundant game of cat and mouse. still charmed by the hunt.

distorted. nervous. in the rush of revision. bean stalks and giants. thundering footsteps. tremors in the atmosphere. like breath redolent of lovers. bleeding through. from the time before we met. the choke of distance. stifles our breath. as we surrender to the kiss.

close to the end. closer still to the beginning.

skeleton wings. stab the wind. no flight. no names. only the places below us. once so small. getting bigger.

bled. discarded. determined. the huff of thick scars. they scrape the when. as it tries to remember what is better left forgotten.

the battle. the sword. the dead. merely the vessel. for a much larger struggle. the season. the change. steps in the path to the edge.

the drop so steep. it dwarfs how high we are. the flesh is an ambivalent story. the skeleton reluctantly narrates.

holes much deeper. than they seemed from the surface.

the texture of if. like burlap and cognac. the sweet tenacity of friction. as it extracts flesh from ghosts. and finds the humanity in sex.

turning lives into stories. simple gods trying on their gowns. afraid to dance. knowing the music of touch is brief. and the science of men is fickle.

soft surrenders. lean hard. into the arms of the abyss. charmed by the principle of its uncertainty.

Thieving their moments. From shallow cuts. To infinity's throat.

soldiers. dogs. good-bye laughs. stiff. apparent. awkward. in its highest heels. banter and bark. and dying trees. too tall to blame.

minutes to become us. years to tinker with. what we were.

guns. bark. cries the wolf. soft. emollient. arrogant. in its shortest skirt. liars and trials. the skin is evidence. the moment is wager. the gamble is taken. too often.

woodsmen. witches. soft and creased on the shoulder of the shadow. the fable too heavy. the flesh too thin.

the fairy tale is thick with risk. sacrifice. and fear. the lesson is dark with blame. we are all guilty. of waiting. for change to happen.

straw. sticks. brick. harder. emptier houses.

for all our crutches.

they still fall down.

we are all children in our stories. and old in our skins.

a puzzle of moments. that almost fit.

she takes us apart in stutters of skin. spoiled by the terminal concept that is connection. folds in paper devils. cautiously map the treasure. buried too deep.

high on the velocity of indifference. she puts me back together. with a stab and a wink. sex like cellophane. hisses and cracks against the friction. of our stilted trust. muted. defiant. stubborn.

as ugly as she wants me to be. as beautiful as I've ever seen her.

foul panties. worn by the flood. say nothing. just breathe. their deaf songs. broken feet stumble the sun. tripping on their blindness. the sweet fruit of her lips. now rotten.

choices like scales. absorb the weight.

years like gravity. play the last of her threads.

you took the color. turned it inside out. so only the black heard. only the white saw. everything in between them. infinite and useless.

long tunnels. dense nightmares in the wrench of drugs. i wanted to wake up. but the hole was ink. and the surface only paper.

her touch. a whisper of sleep against an army of insomnia.

we dug those graves. bitten fingernails our only shovels. we drew the smiles on those cadavers. picking scabs to get the paint.

we let the rain fall. each cloud our own. nurturing every storm.

counting backward. building the machine. in stumbles and punches. chewing on the edge of the abyss.

stubborn angles. betting on friction.

a fool's roulette. artfully refracted in a prism of causality.

time. practical poisons.

the flight of touch. the turbulence of skin.

rabbit's feet and turtle necks. the piety of luck. poker chips and penny loafers. the risks in not taking them.

that little house. wide open. yet unaffected. by the wind or the rain. a mouse trap missing the bait. that heavy face. colorless and silent. no expression. a puzzle without edges. practical poisons. darkening the outlines on those villains.

as if the world sleeps beside us. in quiet fits. an eager lover. a seldom friend. too lazy to love us. too selfish to leave.

time was. life is. a practical poison. waiting on us. to decide. how much.

ragged dolls. sewn on smiles. a frenzy of stitches. and so many threads to pull on.

swells the stem. the flower not withstanding. incursions. of the temporal kind. we remain young in our heads. but grow old in their eyes.

for all the miles we'll travel. for all the machines we'll construct. as far as we can go. we still end up in this place.

greasy pistons. simple moving parts. in a complex and thoughtless machine.

brush strokes. isolated swatches of paint. small drops of color. in an elaborate and empty landscape.

burns the match. rapid and devout. drawn to the consumption of fire. everything is the same. it either leaves us behind or else it devours.

tells the doll. fingers sewn to the dark. gentle lies. barely enough to press the button. on idling engines. deaf gods. that see our prayers. but cannot hear them.

stubborn fruition. bold blankets. work the folds. eliminating the extraneous permutations. angry monkeys beat the ground. with big sticks. Erroneously assuming someone is listening.

turtles give their speeches. arrogant amphibians discard their shells. playing to the race they've already won.

simple things. turn ugly. monsters unmasked. but they were always there. so how to stop loving them.

matter is mutable. entropy gives chase. change is a factor. decision is a tempting variable. but we are helpless.

thieves caught in the cycle of entitlement. dry river beds. simple gods. overcome. by the devils we've created. to prove ourselves.

entropy. the thrust of darkness. colors her wounds. traces her scars. discovers all those pieces. brighter still. for the decay.