she dies quietly. no songs. no flowers. every day a barter. of strangers and suicides. a choke of resistance. a thunder of humility. the color red. deep in the path. tethers and veins in an economy of flesh. lies and wolves and empty pages. the blue dominion of ghosts and orphans. a mortgage of surrender thick with the debt of change.

small doors. swivel the light. tease the journey. detours in contrition. wear her in thick drapes. cold windows. fetch the dark. in decimals and halves. portions of when. fractions of who. fetid gods audit their heavens.

faces like dominoes. fingers like syringes. tumbling. no cure. no medicine.

a circus of skin. full of clowns and acrobats and animals.

a little bit of death in her pocket.

blackboards cough. thick with lessons discarded. thighs hiss. venomously parted. breasts weep. feverishly naked. the strum of the quiet. frets on the neck of the darkness. snatch their songs. from the loose soil. from the quivering lips of coincidental nightmares.

dirty pennies coax the fountain. chew on the wishes. raw bones and rotted flesh. assemble the world from what pieces are left.

a scream of color wakes her.

she counts backward. from zero. until she reaches nil again. a journey of fractions. weak with human arithmetic.

we take. gaping and empty and certain. a contagion of need. a plague of lovers. more ghost than flesh. buttons on the machine. cull the gods. blunt arrows and sweet candy houses. knot their witches. turn their breadcrumbs inside out.

the dance. the manic reprise. stern shallows weep the ocean. hardly close enough. the tumble. the bold addition. swept like fire and rain. stolen blond and clean pussy. bandages on the rape. liars. and friends. bent to the ladder. spoiled to the chase.

places so much like how we are. soft and lingering. loose buttons pestering the gods. tempted to embrace the storm. the allure of destruction. a panic of faces confronts an army of one.

the flesh is a merchant. always selling.

we are just product.

tempted by the blade. worn. tumbles of flesh. surrender to the cauldron. flame and hollow and panic. scabbing thoughts. soft still. scrape the edge. sated. a belly full of surrender. tamed. a muted beast.

solved. an equation of skin.

small bridges open slowly. simple monsters discard their masks. i am the disguise. or at least i was.

distance itches hot and cold. the disease of if infects and spreads. choice confesses conspiracy and mayhem. cracked buttons on the facade of massive machines. missing parameters in the algorithm of humanity.

little candles in the expanding darkness. broken matches bend to the flame. lies favor the young. and older is all i can ever be.  the mercy of ignorance expires and the truth comes rushing in.

tasting. tasted. worms in the soil. fingers in the shit. snake the method. slither the salvation. too close to the wick. the princess bathes in piss. her kingdom becomes her toilet.

windows dirty with suicide. doors thick with ghosts. so many funerals. no graves to visit.

solved. the merits of madness. the value of touch.

shaking fingers caress the storm. thin clouds skate the sun. tease the rain. tepid monsters in their dirty pajamas. negotiate with the bad dreams.

missing colors and wrinkled hats. the pierce of silence like medicine. she pretends to be alive. like they are. but her grave keeps getting in the way.

dull blades scrape the meat. dead things with their gaping songs and torn flags. empty wars with their missing bombs. and tired soldiers.

addition makes her weak. an optimist lacking apostles. subtraction makes her indifferent. a skeptic kicking the sand. division draws her bones. bent by the moments. the sharp angles that spoil the path.

she walks alone. following the numbers. crippled by the math.

seldom thieves in the garden. predators without teeth. plastic eyes steal their faces from the discarded. pale orphans smothered in their own want. naked hunger filthy with ambition. a frenzy of skin. hysterical with numbness.

she wakes him from inside her grey. a long tunnel of words to traverse. she traces the dance of his eyes as they crack open. boulders sheared apart by the drill of the ocean. overflowing with distant words she cannot hear. quiet on the surface and deafening below. an ongoing funeral flaunting empty caskets and desperate ghosts.

tight pants. slim pockets. to hold the notes. the diagrams of footsteps. the lazy arithmetic of going. scratching these temporary maps into our flesh. borrowed places to visit. surrogate destinations. for those that are barren.

false additions. time can only subtract. take back. what we never really had. monsters on the porch. softly knocking.

the yellow follows her. minute breaths she's forgotten to take. staggered voices. broken with timbre. the archive. the capacitance. of hunger. the simple electric of skin. ample fires pause the scale. the lies almost enough. the measure of loyalty is in the strength of the poison.

the worker. the empty room. the dust on the glass. as the cold finds its way through the cracks.

this grey room wheezes with disconnected fevers. the tremulous stutter of hopeless anticipation. the mind is a frigid bed. life is an unwelcome visitor. 

the red listens. short strings tease the bulb. the body stretches. reaches into the darkness. to move that switch. see again. like it used to. when the sun still thought of us as disciples. when the winter still had an end to it.

the slave. the listener. deep in the throes of one final cocoon. a stagnant metamorphosis.

the blue room. these last hours like a theater. a drama of conditions. a stalemate of conflict. a silent audience. a panic of decisions.

full of stabs and shouts. a delirium of loyalty. leaves her alone with her madness.

slender portals between saviors and assassins. naked dolls with plastic limbs to sell.

suspicious time lines. choke on the drum. soft stairs replenish. broken atoms. simple lies to offset the bigger ones.

her road maps in flesh and dandruff. the pulleys impatient as gravity shuffles into oblivion. take the doorway. in fangs and claws. open wounds deliberately tempt the wolves.

tomorrow's thin lips. yesterdays swollen tongue. either way, the words are the same.

vagrant iterations. cycles of when. these bones still sweated life. these shadows still touched the sun. shallow harbors fiddle with the dial. arrogant machines bully the clock. we live our lives as outlines. waiting to be filled in. talking in colors. loving in pictures.

too often, the future comes back for her. and she is stubborn. refuses it.. wearing her eyes backward. telling her stories with erasers. imagining the ink will someday catch up.

every day we are destroyed. lost and recovered. in a chaotic compendium of desperate choices.

the blizzard wears her. in pale shades of snow. inches. years. faces. patterns in the void. thieves surrender to their matchstick. one small flame overwhelmed by darkness.

thin ladders shiver the path. heavy autumns spoil the fire. liars and victims too similar. the itch in the noose. a world rich with giref. Beautiful Iago's in their creased capes. No swords to slash. Just a gaping jaw and the empty words that fall at random. tepid lightning strikes.

her giants sleep. weakly fetal. rustling in their beds. jagged gardens. breathless with the choices only time can extend.

the yellow. slithering exceptions manipulate the grid. shrinking martyrs in a kingdom of deflating gods. the red. the roulette of skin. spinning wheels and anxious bets. that bring us no closer.

eyes like staples. fingers like glue. the weight of the words impossible.

templates. commissions paid in skin. data. saviors drawn in pencil. as the pages swell with so many strangers. numbers dance like daggers. the steal of choices. the sour of selection. the hour stutters as it moves through her veins. charmed by the angles. betrayed by the math.

the portal resolves. to nowhere. running in circles. searching for the exit. the window cracks. spreading fingers in the poison. the enemy comes and goes. the war remains constant.

drawings. faces in the fog. create her. in fits of flesh and fury. numb to gravity. as it all falls down. like so many canteens lost to the desert.

the simple child. writhes in submission. consenting to the slavery. the edges hunger. parch. reconcile. to dry wells and rotten meat.

the destination laughs. monsters in their people faces. scales to measure how empty it is. the numbers listen. the equations negotiate. slipknots in the when. tremors of if.

slits in the thread. ample needles. bark the syllables of dying. the forgotten path finds her. after years wasted in tremors. a bridge over tumbling utopias. a vantage point on the damage. toy cars in the laps of giants. this simple dream of living. a reluctant whisper clenched in my fist.

stirring the stars. the darkness thickens. a rich gravy on decaying thoughts. the sky falls. as it is given to do. propped up by so much imagination. a rancid feast of ill considered choices. the fickle dominion of gods and demons. has plenty of room for us in the flames.

the simple lies that define our truths. are nothing if not spectacular. that life still charms us into worship. tilted mountains feeling for the sun. the arrogance of gravity. as it pretends it keeps us here.

she drags the heavy Earth behind her. satchels of wisdom and woe. when everyone is hungry a slice of bread makes you rich. when everything is dark a candle is all it takes to be king.

colors in the void. swell the sparks. fire makes its maps across desolate terrain. anxious flowers in a garden of darkness.

power solves for y. intent resolves to x. the snow like a million tiny fortune tellers predicts we will be cold. lost in a merciless series of selves. more intimate with irony that we would care to know. definedby callous storms that remind us our humanity. judged by swelling oceans that insist we are too close.

numbers are stern. scissors with a purchase on paper. jagged ribbons at the base of the volcano. wear the ash. bathe in the lava. embrace disaster on their own terms.

the world undulates. swayed by the rage of the winds.thick with soldiers. 
a crude tourniquet racing to tie off immeasurable wounds.

lucky liars sup on their instincts. beautiful ends finish the sun. in choked pistols and hollow ammo. the hours stumble onward. in their defiant vertigo. carrying buckets full of darknesss into places where there used to be homes.

deadpans and serial surgeons. the paradox of thought. as skin makes its inevitable trespasses. easy to forgive. hard to understnad. broken limbs sweep the ground to the rush of traffic. blind matadors fucking the horns of the bull. No injuries. Just decisions. On how much to bleed.

hours on the rim. flooded chalkboards. wait. wait for  the world to find. the broken pencils on the floor. it's just tomorrow. it doesn't mean anything at all. forgotten lovers in the ocean's clenching fists. distant blizzards in the footsteps of arrogant hurricanes.

she wore me. like thin underwear and thinner scripts. devils in long nooses. gods in slipknots and shallow skins.

the eager departs her. furtive and raw. to lies. to pretend. to say it's over when it's not.

the huff of humanity. weak and harsh. a stab of vaccine in a frenzy of disease.

if we are nothing. and nothing is what we are. paper daggers honing their edges on the darkness. paper dolls clutching the folds.

nothing close enough to grasp. nothing too far away to forget. the truth is purgatory. life is waiting out the storm.

pennies and teddies bears. copper and chocolate. the world ends at every corner. starts again at every door.

the atoms split. the colors mingle. we are lost. everything changes. nothing does. the cold writes its stories in dead batteries and broken glass.

kittens on the roof waiting to be drowned. islands in the ocean. eager to be found.

blank stories write the stone. pebbles and boulders fall just the same. the colors lie. the eye is gone. terminals pretend to know where it ends. roads insist they have somewhere to go.

parts. relucant jigsaws and vicious ends. the puzzle resolves to itself. dead before it begins.

salvage rewards the stripped. the desolate. a crippled train pushes forward into the abyss.

against the grain of desperation's velvet skin. slouches the thunder of the forgotten. distant ships force the tide. press the shore. for some place to land.

seldom worlds collide. in a violence of choices. my money's on the better liar.

it goes. like water down windows panes. a nervous sex of quench and thirst. it leaves. in silence. as awkwardly as it came.

dark in the root of the stare. blue arms rake the black. grow the ache in threads and swells. turning, toiling nothing. as empty as its appetite is large. red fingers stroke the orange. the sleep of impatient martyrs. vomits nightmares.

panting highways force the miles. in crunching hours and stabbing years. time betrays. the young and the old the same. 

far. far like alone is heavy. dragged. never lifted.

close. close like despair is patient.

we choke down the distance. burnt tea and stale crackers. stealing the journey at every gap. miles at our throats. miles at our backs. we wear the empty. confident in our hardships. grateful for small candles.

turns and pieces chase the void. with stilted abandon. the storm leaves us behind. thoughtless. unceremonious destruction. huddled orphans and pounding egotists. hammer their nails into rotted wood.

the storm leaves. much the same as it found us. broken branches. in the shadows of fallen trees.