the number is loud. in that quiet way it often is. Secondary and patient. Like the stutter of graves as the grass grows over them. happiness in twigs and twine. Eyeliner and rouge. The pale cheeks of god moist with the semen of Satan.

It's only math because I've been counting. How far we've come.

Her breasts. The lock. Trembling with the keys. The needle. Nervous ghosts. Steal her feet. The end of the worl chssing the beginning.

The tepid math of liars and friends. Counting backward from when.

she listens with her legs. Determined to run faster.

the world ends in question marks and misplaced semicolons.

black dogs. with thier teardrop eyes and oilcan skeletons. the desperate choke of the engine. as it idles. coaxing fractions of life from the small percentages of skin still intact. on heavy bones swollen with scabs.

what is there. what is hungry. torn kites on their broken strings. scarred fingers left with the tether. everything is distant. stories from the lips of gods to the ears of demons. the perpetual thirst that convinces us to keep searching for water in the desert.

her eyes are plaid as she falls asleep. the chaos and the color of wanting. her knfe is dull. Her lies are clean. As the wolf yawnd. still stranfed in the long divisison of skin.

small windows. huge openings. the edge of her blade like seldom gowns. empty buckets. on their way to the well. an intricate series of pullies. the scratch of eyelashes on fading visions.

she owns the monster. bits of tooth and puddles of sweat.  polish the portait. She flaunts her suicide. in soiled panties and faded lipstick. death is her canvas.

motion. grey songs. in the creases of her smile. too far. daffodils and opiates extract the future from her thighs. gentle tornadoes. brutal kisses. the future is blind. the past is deaf. and we are victims of that foul math.

numbers swell. like the choke of her pleasure as it erupts from her throat. subtle divisions. between. want and need. the shadow in her stare stalks. hunting. dead things and fairy tales. hungry for the end of the world .

the wolf in her orgasm howls. a clumsy bridge. to a important  place. anywhere pleasure threatens a woman is of the advantage.

needles. her words thread. all in knots.

colors. a crises of conditions. the weep of the mountain. as it bends down to show her how far from. how close it is. the obvious paradox. of choices versus being chosen. the parallels of addiction and decision. idling engines tracing the world. in explosions of touch. and swaying bridges.

there is no measure other than this. crippled stars and empty lamps. as she sits in the dark staring at the sun.

too many choices and not enough reasons.

Page numbers and pistols. Sort out the loose skin. Wet kittens dance on boiling stages. Naked, but for their unretractable claws. Drawn. stiff lines in the wick of the darkness. Bait the flame. With eyes of kerosene. Plenty worn dolls carry their fists in their pockets. Looking for a stranger with small change.

Corners. Magnificent juxtapositions of choice and hysterics. Stories. Faces. Like broken mountains and falling suns. Math. The numbers in her fist. And between her legs. A seldom series of quiet and contrition. Touch in chamferred corners and lilting gowns. Choices much sharper.

Colors. Strand them. Doomed to each other. The pale grin of touch as it reveals her to him. in broken puzzle pieces. This close to dead everything is huge.

Walls. Eyes of brick. Words like mortar. The wild. In doses of her. Foul medicine for the dying. From this distance everything is small.

choosing. temporary abdomens. the feathers. scribble in her eyes. hungry tears. eager authors. spoil her signature. empty tires. the manic machinery of skin. clumsily switching gears.

the distance is quiet. bashful whispers embrace the monsters. swell the dead. in their futile rebellion.

yellow ghosts and orange graves. a eulogy of fists. bruise her many faces. pistons and cadavers. wager the beast. in the breath of mountains. and the patience of liars.

the steps betray her. Inches miss by years. truth blame each other. spoiled soldiers doomed by choices.

practical demons measure her gaze. mud and rainstorms. like puzzle pieces. all the colors wear her down. all the shapes pretend to know how far. stiff bridges. shallow waters. monkeys on the coin.

outlines. soft pencil marks. her lips like canvas. her eyes acrylic. too many artists.

negotiating phantoms. raw windows. play the chemist. sleepy soldiers. ladders through the vein. unwilling to wait for the bones to recognize the stranger.

the mountain. impossibly close to heaven. the pen still stabbing without ink. the angry clock. a fetid superman. all cape. no strength. other than forgetting.

and waiting. so much waiting. so many buttons to push on the broken time machine.

the whore in her pink wig knows. how many steps. to reach the bottom. her eyes black with the piss of heaven. every breath is thirst. and only this can quench it. gods urinating. and devils' shit.

liars and children. hopeless without the wind. hungrier than they are. ghosts and windows. watching as nothing changes.

she waits for the music before she starts to dance. but the song is not as patient as she is. the wolf catches up. Beautiful fangs tempt her to be eaten again. Devoured. In that familiar lurch of pleasure. An eyelash suffocating in the cheek of god.

the whore in her wig knows. how much farther. her hair laden with the sick of disposable paradises. pretending to dance. as the music stiffens.

simple paths. quiet storms. she drifts away in a thunder. an open window. drowning in the glass.

her empty bucket follows her down the hill. in a hysteria of gravity she disappears. All of her words blinked away in the certainty of skin. Words vanish into the stale ozone of touch. the pollution of consciousness is eliminated. She never was. Never has been.

no names. no years. no heavy brick houses to keep her inside. she is gone. evaporated through the chains of her bone and blood. not there. never was. just her lips like a sharp pencil tracing the darkness. free at last.

the blunt of sound not jarring. the tug of words powerless. the world is small and distant. One tiny pebble in an ocean of discontent. A single raindrop in a flood of confessions.

she is small. and so far away. stumbling through a colorless garden.

the button. samples of skin. absolved to the results. the alien. loose costumes sink to the floor. as she tries on her stockpile of masks. feverish ghosts nervous with the frailties of men. the shivering logic of want as it gives away what it has.

pretty monsters. in their sparkling grins. the world in absolutes. fractions of how we ever came this close to each other. the fire on the ladder as she stumbled away. from small rooms. sparks pissing atoms. choices vomiting debt.

the roar of her thighs as she sinks into that carnival. the needle full of decision. the drug calm with yeses.

the instruments of her destruction talk quietly. whispers between then and now. voices underwater.

portions of when. skeleton dictators. and the despot between her legs. small wars always have the largest consequences. butterflies on their leashes. still bite down hard.

tremors. near enough to the edge. gravity. like some sweet cancer. he we are. dying all over again.


the road. in creases of yellow and white. limits on how fast. frenzies of how slow. the metal. the elements. the physics. of knowing. how much farther there still is to go. broken clowns. with their smiles in their fists. so red. so simple. the stalled cartograpby of skin.

nowhere to go. and everywhere to see. the spinning top. the choke of the arithmetic. subtracting each moment.

the pulse of the lie. beating loud in her chest. the whisper of the truth. delicate raindrops on thick windows. monsters emerging from under her fingernails. stubborn flesh. assuming it knows the villains within.

small pebbles. eager poets. overcome with more words than meaning. something small.

Steep hills. the bottom so loud.

dry ink under her fingernails. tells its stories. in chokes of orgasm. the fold. desire into skin. the thrust of the sale. the limp of the payment. as they combine. to make us smaller. dreadful suspicion. naive hunger. the end of the world in dirty dishes. and that dark place we have to keep them.

I was alone until all these strangers invaded my head. I was the world with all the lights out. the lost holding up their candy flame.

holes dug. skin like sheet metal.

That first poke. As the vein spread its legs to receive. this epiphany of this disease.

dead skin. eyes like anvils. the perpetual question in her cunt. the apocalypse of touch. carving out the woman from within.

at the center of the flame she hides in its cold spot. waiting for the world to end.

numbers. the evolution of when. blunt abortions of how close we were. the scarce humanity of choice. an open door. and empty pillow. the long zipper. she pulls on. to pretend she knows. or will someday soon. How many stars. How dense the darkness that surrounds them.

Every touch is a prophecy. every breath is a treason.

The series follows her. Uncertainty and science like tight gloves and absent bullets. all her voices cardboard. humbled by the storm. all of her choices buckets. collecting the rain that always falls.

thumb the mire. kick the moat. stubborn aliens in her oatmeal. fail to wake her. touch is a dismal stopwatch for how fast we've run. empty tents sleep the servants of songs no one hears. heavy buckets spill weighted truths. memory is a poor measure of how far we've come.

the mind is a blackened mirror. Heavy arrows bend the bow. the future is paper. the past is lead. now is flesh. our only chance to feel something.

little pigs basting in their beds. succulent with sin. petulant protagonists is this manic mediocre tragedy. purple priors with their pants around their shins. the winter's thick tongue lapping at dwindling grass. the stab of the hunger. Rising up from where she began. Pitchforks and puppets. Testing the stretch of confusion.

the poetry of want. still undecided.

the color. the putrid spark. as life stumbles. as loud as it is lost. the rope. eager games play the odds. the burn. the grip. toothsome predators. pale in the wane of the sun.

the world ends quietly. like we were never there at all. the snake hisses. victory more venomous than she had imagined.

the gamble. the scrape of skin. the bone too near. a repetition of ends. more ghost than man.

Her snow white listens. As the poison apple is prepared. More than ready for the end. The hunt always ends in flesh. the bones dances inside it. a prism of words belonging only to strangers. a suicide of knowing. Determined to forget.

yellow button eyes. scraped blue skin. she listens. for a choice. amongst all those decisions. chasing the world with her broken matchstick. the dim of the flame becoming apparent. as the hour resolves to an empty mattress. a stutter of touch. to prove we are alive. a whisper of breath to imply that dying would be no different.

there is courage in the needle. pennies on the rim of the well. simple wishes. steal their courage from copper and desperation. the deaf thunder of the lonely. traces her stare. in the sway of when. numbers dared not betray. determined poets. and eager madmen.

the bright colors. the simple victims. of stubborn flowers.

the empty garden. alone with the snake.

cold tempests in the thick rape of the moment. pale doll faces. hungry plastic eyes. see nothing. not far. the elementary scrape of intent. servile and stupefied. the passionate catalyst. moments. devours. famished and rabid. always wanting more.

she teases the wolf.the abbreviated scent of the hunt still strong even in her weakness. she tests the bricks. the height of the wall. gentle lies tell the story as accurate as any memory is. each touch an eager fiction in a short story gone on much too long.

the engine chokes on the fumes of its own combustion. the subtle punctuation in her eyes. alters the poetry in her skin. she runs softly. in the wet soil. chased by footprints she leaves behind.

small eyes stare big. broken steps down to dark cellars. the dark is shy and soft. pillars of cotton candy turned black. threads of breath tightening on her lips.

steps. in burnt soil. holes in the sand. quiet lullabies for the storms under her skin. wicked witches slither out of their dresses. bashful serpents high on their own venom.

the road narrows. but she doesn't slow down. more intent on the get away than the getting there. the pavement bends and twists. she hasn't gone far.

she pretends to hear. rain and wind and circumstance. as if the world is still there. she lies and says she can see. colors and shadows and choices. as if any of that matters. she continues to dance. as if there is still music.

choices. the undertow of touch. bony fingers reach inside. lidless eyes watch.

the purpose of the demon is to illustrate the innocent. and so it waits. for such a thing to come.

the liars sleep in the thick of the metaphors. dense stitches on the hem of the world. thick syringes. anxious with the rush.

she wears the hours like soiled underpants. thick with blood and cum. weak portals play to the monsters at the back of her throat.

her skin a sermon. ripe with mania of sin. burnt bridges. to span the distance between flesh and distance. small men in their dark closets. torn notes as to where. daylight confesses its ignorance. in this carnival of skin.

the open door. cold breaths. weep the threshold as she crosses. divided by choices. multiplied by if.

the pastel of her lips. seldom arbiter. eager criminal the lie solves her. with numbers to spare. the simple equation of blood. draws its maps on her arms.

a missing devil naps inside her head.

liars. helium skin. the weight of nothing so heavy. broken turns. torn maps. the distance between touch and surrender only inches.

she draws. vacant needles feign to know the path of her blood. the orbit of flesh. as scars play to the sun. the spark of death as she wonders how distant that vein really is. the joker perched on his walls. a colorless vulture. dining hungrily on the carcass.

I'm too old to believe that the world is mine. too young to accept that it's not.

the words are like predators. assuming I will run. But I don't. They tire themselves out chasing shadows.

I continue counting. Confident in the math.

Every night the world ends. And I allow it. Because otherwise it would get too close. And this dying would be too hard.

the dogma of skin pretends her. in cold repetitions of pleasure. her last pawn chases the king. On an empty board.

she runs away. but it chases. the broken colors. the ugly chains. the mania. of how close we came. to wanting more.

Flesh negotiating saviors. one lies at a time.

the timeline resolves to places long lost. gentle lies pretend her. in the absence of the beautiful monsters once thought tamed by her. manic beasts as wild as they ever were. softly part her thighs. a stubborn cliff with its arms swept open to embrace the fall. the tedious thump of her blood. as it orbits her heart. a cruel mistress kissing placebo poisons.

her confessions are mild. yesterday pretends gods and monsters. but no one sees them.

she chases the moment. decimals her only charges. candles with blackened wicks and buckets with too many holes in them. eyes not to see. listen. words not to say. hear.

knots in the thread. slipping through. as the needle strays. gaps in the hem. as the monster slips inside her.

empty skins. still smell of the child inside them.