Sorting the thieves. numbers fold in upon themselves. pierced balloons. vomit her thoughts. in a series of wars too small to detect.

Bullets kiss the rebellion. As any lover would. Loud. And sharp. And impossibly destructive. the reproaches of sleep more than welcome.

Her pencil dances. The frantic tango of borrowed skin. her face wears her body. dirty rags play with all the choices she no longer has. The future still pretending to remember people without one.

eyes like bottle caps. scrape the surrender. tipping moons spill. Her expression parenthetical. like too many sleeping pills.

pencil marks on the cosmos. piss in the time machine. The world in puzzle pieces No edges. All middle.

life doesn't happen. it suffocates us. in stabs of pleasure that create more wounds.

Her body is a mosaic. Broken shards thrust into beauty. Her wrists are open. Urgent with reality. Dying is the only way to live.

the world ends. quietly. in a whimper of skin. like the choke of a nightmare. all loud colors and foul scent. the tumble of time as it loses its grip. on broken kite strings.

the world penetrates in slits. shafts of sunlight that sneak through the darkness. the future decides her. In slips and stumbles. The clumsy momentum of trust. like the monsters in her bed. an ugly comfort.

the subtleties define her. a brevity of choices. Punctuated by a abundance of question marks.

the world ends in a pandemonium of skin. each touch louder, more urgent than the last. flesh like sirens. wailing. flickering colors. lost to bigger battles.

The war finds her before she does it. dull pencils tracing failing maps. the machine guns hiss. Numbers. years. faces. Growl and claw. Cornered animals. Sick with when.

She knew. Or thought she did.

The world tumbles. A feather in a vacuum.

The words stiffen in her throat. Concrete setting.

The thief. Nimble fingers on the seam. As it splits. The vagaries of choice erupting. In a fountain of consequence.

Blue lights. Drunken tulips. Struggle against the zen. an empty garden. no apples anywhere.

the layers. cautions to the castle. a mockingbird on the ledge. the echo of an old song dissecting its beak. not enough monsters. too many men. humanity's grip tightens around her neck.

thin stews steal the lie from off her lips. a pause of breath to measure her panic.

a treason of touch traces her silhouette. Until only the idea remains. The plague of want. Arrogant with rebellion.

Corners stalled in the dark. An epiphany of skin unravelling. In stutters and gasps. The simple monsters of men. Defeated.

Orange clouds. Purple sun. Palettes for sale. Open bridges. Force us to wait while the taller ships pass through. The coin. The metal. Servants of suspicion. Wrest the blood from her bandage. To name the wound. Give it strength where there was none. Stretch the string taut and listen. For the whisper. The trembling voice of how. Pricks her. Bland medicine. Makes her sicker. Dilutes the virus that is her. No cure. Only pauses in the voltage.

The lights are pale. The voices are soft. Stages undressing in her head. No actors. Just deflated dialogue.

Eyes in the window. Conversations with the end. Much too loud.

a fumble of touch. dull razor on her throat. scrapes, but draws no blood. she wears the world in a pantomine. hands pressed against invisible walls.

their flesh moves inside her. thieves and technicians. wallow in the equations. time. distance. cost. a triad of voids desperate for an absolute. hopeless in the constant that is her gaze. the world swimming in decisions she's yet to make.

a needle. scouring the dirty vein. a thread. dumbfounded by the seam. deaf soldiers listening for the enemy.

Colors. Melting crayons on the dew of her lips. An algebra of apostrophes possessing nothing. Small knots in long stitches.

a war with its eyes closed. pretending to see.

Choices. Bent hangers at the back of her throat. Lead fingers sifting stones. She wears the yellow. In gentle creases that pretend to know. The impact this distance has on how much further there is to go. Dense kings deferring to their jokers. This skin my only wager. This game impossible to know.

The bridge sways. Cloaked in the logic of physics. Bending so that it needn't break. Or so that is the plan.

The numbers travel. A stuttering parade. Through broken glass. The future ours only in theory. The universe expanding on the bile of the past. She balances on the nail. Anticipating the hammer's strike. She dances on the demon's ass. suffocating in its shit. No heroes. Only men in capes. And the empty masks left in their wake.

The tempest sheds its teapot in an abrupt flourish. The stage thin. The current thinner. The audience science enough.

blue discs in the funnel. consumed by the vacuum of the darkness. bright ropes. flaunt the choke. suffocating. caught on each other. moments bleed into years. the clench of trust. bruises. stiffens. drowns her. in so much hope.

choices whisper. distant nightmares in a stupor of if. the slope. the relentless downward. running. slipping. churning. the high betrays. and we are stones. the density of the water a fitting coffin. the slither of the sun through its rippled surface a heady grin. that laughs silently as we sink.

her breathing plays a stern anthem on my cheek. I see us small. From a great distance. Tired flies come to rest on a broad flame. Hunted by the bigger beasts that can see its edges.

All of us dwarfed by a common enemy.

her flesh is pinwheels. her lips are sand. the wind of her words presses the grit of their colors into my stare. i cannot see. but i listen. for the auction. cold numbers. simple obedience. politics resonating people. like the steady hum of power through an electrified fence.

all of us trapped.

soft hooks draw their outlines. small worlds with the color erased. no one asks why. they can't see. the world is theirs to manipulate. and we are just a small part of it.

the game presses her. creasing her smile with stray additions. the game waists for her decision. to see if she will fight. knowing she must.

the beauty of truth is that it's always unexpected. the reality is that everything is.

she counts the cocoons. as each caterpillar disappears. to transform. to become bigger. than the content of its skin. hunger changes her. finds the monsters only imagined. defeat impart its lesson. in stumbling stabs. the drunk of hate seethes. in the sterile sunshine of a hopeless embrace. alone searches for her, but she ignores it.

everything smaller than she remembers. as the world trembles with touch. little toys. rough with the game. sour in the dark. on the edges of hungry dice. spoiling with forgiveness. though suffering is what she prefers.

stones in her shoes. fingers in her head. a stumble of choices. a deliberate execution of indifference. the soiled bed sleeps the child. in stifled sobs and burning flesh. the empty pillow rests the head of the woman. in impotent chemicals and slipped knots.

the wormhole is ours. to manipulate and abuse. to hate. to love. to blame. and to forgive. for all the places we've been. that left us. but never let us leave them.

pennies in her fist. wishing backward from the well. zippers in her head. opening. the heavy rain hides the footprints. of thieves. the storm erases any evidence.

ants in her panties. spiders under her eyelids. she pretends to be asleep. as the biting devours her.

the world ends and begins in the same place. crumbs on the lips of inadequate gods. gluttonous spectres tinkering with flesh on old equations.

the imagination of poets the only evidence we have that we exist.

time spoils inside her. a virus. multiplying. infecting every action. every choice. the labor of each breath more than punishment enough.

timid monsters. is what the world is full of. each evil quieter than the last.

the circle lassos her. and she turns. ripe with contrition. as the wormhole closes. prepared to argue the sun.

dragging her time machine behind her. licking the numbers. sour candies melting on the asshole of the universe. torn ribbons. flaunt their bows inches from utopia. the math is simple. it's the result that's impossible.

Dead men take off their panties. As if anyone is still interested in their cunts.

servants and liars. bent thumbs on the dice. the blossom of thieves. as the blood cuts its way toward the hunger. in little squares. too small to color. the truth like napalm. coldly burning away at the skin.

thieves. the incumbent of surrender. slurring the voice between now and then. slender angles. surges of when. the future still wanted to know. little girls with red panties. women with flesh removed. the ugly answers to so many beautiful questions.

choices like raindrops fall from the sky, the swift mania of indifference consumes her. fetid clouds and terminal utopias. pluck the child like strings undone.

a simple song. like screaming crayons. and missing colors.

yellow dragons with their purple tongues. scrape the sky. solving monsters. with simple addition. gone. like apples lost from the tree. new to lips. slick with the juices. of theft. why it is. when it was. if it ever will be again. thin purchases made with rigid currency.

soft lies weave their stories. moist portraits bleed through cracking mirrors. she feeds the knife. bits of skin. as it constructs the skeleton from the missing pieces. a life more bartered than it is owned. a world more bone than it is flesh. so many pieces to put together. so few that seem to fit.

the cloud thunders. rages as a cloud must do. the rain comes down. condemned to gravity's selfish whims. they all. each raindrop. wind up on the ground. no matter the height from which they've fallen.

we pretend to decide. who is at fault. for this awful predicament. we shout and say we know why it hurts. but it's the reason that possesses us. wobbly bridges and tender branches. that leave us alone to sleep too close to the sun. flower petals in the pockets of men she hardly knew.

pink ribbons. loosely tied to the whisper of her words. gentle lies that soften the edges of overwhelming truths.

the thief in her grin. counts backward. Solving for nil.

The box. Thick with uncertainty. The science. Frail with the man.

The end comes in choke of neon. The hum of the gas as it presses against dark. Her reticent thunder steals the storm. Like the world is too small to grab. And all these flowers in my hand are daggers. And nothing is ever so small I am. Right now. Devout with self. Pious with discontent.

she listens as the world falls silent. For a whisper. Touch like knives. Too sharp. Blood like thieves. Simple monsters. keep running. though they've lost the race.

The worm on her hook still alive inside the fish's mouth.

dead things. ribbons undone. knots in her smile opening. the distance drawn in red markers. Teasing our proximity. To the end. Such beautiful monsters. With the ugly on top of them.

small graves. to fit ourselves in. no room for regret. long funerals. the cusp of sleep. licking her cheek. never letting her taste its lips. always chasing the end. never quite catching it.

finger to thigh. needles on concrete. gasping for movement. eye to tongue. rodents in the wood pile. eating their young. to starve the cat.

the plush of the drug stiffens. swallows her. velvet jaws with iron teeth. take small bites. until every bone is empty. the monster in the evening gown keeps dancing. until the music stops. crippled snakes with their fangs in their fists.

soft wars win her over. the invisible fire that still remembers. the color of burning.

the sear of each moment. as it concedes to the weak conditions that turn flesh into trust.

No hunt. Only scavengers. No rest. Only soiled beds. the complex monsters that offer her a crayon.

Soft of tip and hard of edge.

All the colors are wasted. Brief messages from here to there.

An empty pocket of listening. Adrift on an ocean of screams.

surface scratches. the blunt of gravity. as it begs the difference between fall and jump. the stagger is people. in her head. loud enough. even with the storm. the manic rain. the calm thunder.

her lips pencil marks. her eyes permanent marker. the awkward fairy tales of flesh begin to color in her outlines. each choice another pin prick. in a world deflated.

she choose her ogres carefully. the world inside a box. alive until someone opens the lid. the stutter of claws across existing scars. quiet and incomplete. the tender of marrow purchases her patience from dirty bandages.

she listens for the whisper of the darkness. and is shocked when it screams.