Presenting the Vein

turn by turn. the road overtakes us. progress comes in stubble and skin. moist and dense. a curious surrender. in a vague war. on a lonely planet. in a place that won't remember. in a time that doesn't forget.

questions. the stutters of how. like broken pencils stabbing the page. a storm of absent words that turns thieves into artists.

she finds herself in the sharp corners and the empty creases. more metaphor than person. more anthem than skin. all hearts are communist. all bodies are capitalists.

the obvious bridge shouts her name. the simple math of love and strangers. as if there is a difference. her eyes like open zippers. all useless teeth. her voice like knotted rope. hopelessly connected.

all the places. a conundrum of epiphanies. all warm swimming pools and dead batteries. all the world. as small as she remembers it. flowing in torn maps and running with broken scissors. feeble hunts and trembling wounds. filling the meat. chewing on the bones. dying radios in a blizzard.

all the miles. invisible monsters in a spectacular parade. matches and scrapes. a rumble of gravity. a fistful of falling. the clarity of doubt. the certainty of surrender.  chase away the stubborn fairy tales that still remain.

the plague of want. all manual transmissions and sweating brakes. hinging gods. and their swinging doors. crippled heavens with crutches made of vomit.