The Mechanics of Skin

patterns. the arithmetic of change. steep hills. bloated with journeys that have all been taken. the quiet of her lion possesses the dark. a weightless roar halting with loss. Her colors all stickpins. In roads too grey. The journey stolen from her.

The pivot of the fulcrum. every star slightly closer. the choke of the world. in colored pencils and torn pages. the walls all glass. the rub of strangers. animals. bargaining with the shame.

Gasping under the moon. Suffocating in the fist of god.

Liars and saints. Bartering with the illusion of power. the fantasy of omniscience. The parity of religion. Curs and strays and victims. Flowers and dew and exhaust. As we hunt. Filthy roads pressed too close. Distance measured in faces.

They all betray this flesh. The one thing that makes us real. Burnt tinder, her eyes, her skin, her want. The ribald manifesto of physics. We are animals. Manic and secreting. Foul and crippled with want. Patterns in the numbers. Pretending stories. Pressing hard on the glass. As if there might be a lesson in all this falling.