If you love me. If you ever did. I can't imagine how. Thin sticks beat the ground. The frivilous music of dead men. Their heads bigger than their hearts. Their time machines stuck on what if.

Grandma comes apart. In thin threads. Of lessons not learnned. Witches only half in the oven. This skin teeming with lessons I may never learn. Because the touch is too easy. Too seldom. Penises like darts. Aim for something too far away. From these shakey hands.

Her thighs were all subtraction. Her tits were merely remainders in the process. There was time she thought to travel both the future and the past. If she could only divide that much. Bite down on those atoms one by one. Like broken fingernails. Find the fractions.

Teach them the math of lonely men.

The coward is an ideal lover. Leaves me glad they are gone. That I know the difference between now and then. The crooked abacus in his pants counting backward from zero. The sad face on his watch looking up at me as I wondered how many hours we'd wasted ignoring each other.

The compartment. Stitches in the soles of her feet. As she stumbles forward. Through careless traffic. On crowded streets. Graves between her tits. Counting on their corpses to make them whole.

It's just intersections. All of it. The words we speak. The skin we grab. Dead flowers of seeds not planted. Calm paradoxes debating with empty underwear. Shrodinger's cat alive and dead inside his cruel experiment. Just like we are.

It's all about not knowing when to stop. Listening for the crack in the ice and stomping on it.

It just is. Meat on the plate. Random. Dead things. For the living to eat. Just chew.

It just is. Nothing supernatural. Bees pollinating. Sperm smashing into eggs.

All religious beliefs are rife with inconsistencies because no singular method can explain that which is random. It has no meaning. Therefore attempting to assign a consistent logic to it results in chaos.

Americans like to throw around the word Karma. Whenever bad things happen to bad people. Or good things happen to good ones. But bad things still happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people. Saying it's Karma is illogical. It doesn't happen on a consistent basis.

Religious folks like to attribute anything inexplicable to god. An omniscient grandad in the sky who has a plan for every second of life for each and every one of the six billion people on our planet. While it's theoretically possible for such vastly superior beings to exist, they would in fact, if they did exist, be just another species. Another life form. Having godlike powers does not a god make. God is humanity's relentless desire to assure itself that it deserves life and all the power that it has come to inherit from millions of years of evolution. Moreover a primitive and flawed rationalization of death.

Strictly speaking god is nothing more than time and circumstance. A collective explosion of genetics and environment that placed us at the top of the food chain on this one small planet. A lonely stone that is surely lost in a universe filled with infinite other organisms on countless other planets. The vast amount of lifeforms that exist on Earth indicate the likelihood of life elsewhere. Or life's inherent ability to adapt itself to and thrive in a diverse range of habitats.

If and when people ever come to understand they are not important. That they do not matter life will be better for everyone. People live just because it is. Life will still matter. Because it does. But no life will matter any more than any other.

Belief will be reserved for things worth believing in.

No one will be born again. No one will have eternal life. Everyone will live. Everyone will die. And it won't matter.

It just is.

The beach. Breathless thighs arguing with the ocean. There. Assuming the spectacle of her touch to be fascination enough to convince him. Time was wrong about passing.

Building her time machine from fallen hairs and bitten fingernails. Nibbles of skin his watchband spit up. The principle is constant. Slow yourself down. Arrive in the past. Find the bridge. Be it in hardened condoms or the soft whiskers of his greying beard.

It's not travel at all. It's just a matter of standing still long enough to notice what I've lost.

Life is always ready to happen. That you are the vessel is irrelevant. Life will happen with or without our consent. That's the fundamental principle that people overlook. We don't give life. We receive it. Or rather, are force fed it.

We don't love life. We fear death.

People aren't strong. Or smart. Or anything worth mentioning. Except violent. Destructive. And careless.

If anything, mothers and fathers should be penalized for making more people. In a world where too many already exist.

God, by whatever name you call it, is just a way to pretend you'll never die. More so to convince yourself you deserve to live.

You don't.

Deserve to live.

No one does.

You don't have the right to have children.

Your existing. Your beliefs. Justify nothing.

You are extraneous matter. Nothing else. Gas cramping the bowels of the universe.

One big fart and we're all gone.

People.

Diarrhea flowing incessantly from the ass of the Earth.

We could break. Spoil the egg. Fragments of shell. Like rain. Falling. Not ever landing. Calm Judas in the noose. The suicide absolving practical sins. The whimsy of saviors is cruel. The definition of god too narrow. Crumbles of dead sperm on a warm tongue. Life instigated. In the hash marks of friction. Fusion. Molecular epiphanies wasted on giants.

Waking up. To someone. Not myself. Wanting to remember. The lies that once made it possible to lie again.

Waking up. Wanting to remember.

My life is on the diving board. The pool is empty.

No more moments like the ones we had. The bleak discoveries of hungry skin. That everything is nourishment.

That it doesn't matter at all how it tastes.

All I want is to be fed.

Waking up. Wanting to remember.

Ample aliens debate the touch of dead men. Summer. In slivers of skin falling from broken fingers. The truce. In coughs of sober. Liars and lovers. Twins of different ages. Dying together.

The crayon draws. Without direction from dying gods and frail men. In lying neckties. Tuxedos of flesh. As black and white as I expect of lust. And love. Or anything that dares to come between them.

The sheets absolve our absence. Nothing to grieve. Tin men without brains. Yellow brick roads to chase. Good witches. Spells still the same. Wizards. Curtains at the back of my head not trying to hide anymore. The console. So many buttons to press. To make this world happen. Too many gods to name to prove it was real. Or even should have been. Written in ink. Needles tease the skin. Plunge the colors closer to the veins. As if they belonged to us. Or ever noticed how near.

Stemless flower petals mock the perfume. Of empty vagina's looking to vomit again. Temptations. Bits of cocaine in Mandee dresses. Sleeping so loud. The map in her crotch. leading him there.

The worthless treasure some women call love.

I want to fall again

. Convince all these pieces they are wrong.

Little men. Or big ones. I haven't a measure for such questions. Only a collection of moments. The scent of strangers like a perfume I've worn all my life.

I argue with the hour. As all women are want to do. It was no one's fault. And every one's. Red thighs rubbing together until the feeling is gone again. Bits of sleep left upon her pillow after waking up. Pieces of men in the bleach she soaks her sheets in. Pieces of shit floating to the surface of the wash.

I was trying to explain to time that it didn't understand us. We don't live in it. Just too close.

I was listening to the time expiring between us. Bleeding loud in broken sobs. Like a naked woman reading Dostoevsky for the first time. The swallow of truth in her voice as she began to speak. Of men. The ones we have. And those we let have us. The difference only a phone call. A disproportionate conversation about skirts still unworn.

The crime: just trying to decide.

The punishment: choice.

Cotton candy tells her where to melt. Distribution of gods. Kind and malevolent. In the resolve of mediocre chemicals. The man wearing gods' gloves. Fingers drawing samples of her. Pieces of pussy. Prozac if you're old. Heroin if you're young.

I could sleep if I wanted to. If you would let me. Close my eyes without still seeing. The fingers of life pointing. As if it matters what I say.

The octopus with so many arms still cannot hold. Or ever hope to touch. All the raindrops her body decides must fall. Sorry is the wolf who cried pig too often. Now no one believes him. When there is something to kill. While the boy is praised.

The hunger is easy. Absolute. One dimension to the person. Taste. The sour of not saying anything. The rubber between her teeth filling up with poetry.

Puzzle pieces. To assemble. Looking like people.

It's only natural that the fish should swallow the hook.

The urge. Selfish as it is. Stems of skin emerging from below. Pop guns and headless barbies our summary outline of the world. Even if I could learn, who could teach this deflated boat to swim. Life is random. And people do forget.

Those demons write their encyclopedias. Turning weakness into fact. The truth is whatever you wish to believe.

We must isolate it. Bits of bacteria on a swab tip of cotton. Each word an experiment. Desperate for gods loud enough to define it. Urgently to prove it can't be done.

If there is time in which we live then there must also be other places. If we can count how many. We can count how few.

If there is time at all. Ripples in the universe to tempt the lost. Into going places they don't belong. And thinking they can stay there.

The truth is only a distraction on this path to knowing. What I want.

And if I can't go back because I was never there. No one can remember my mistakes.

The glove in her stare coming off slowly. Words. Numb fingers learning to feel again. As the sun begins to punctuate life's steady stream of ghastly adjectives. Not a verb to spare. For skin exposed. Damaged. Unable to learn anymore.

Sickness packaged as cures. Always. And especially for the hopeless.

Her grin menstrual. Giving birth in empty coughs. Of things neither alive nor dead. Headless dolls left in convenient cradles. Anticipating birth in puddles of vomit. And abortions not completed.

There is only one kind of drunk. And this it is. Knowing it never mattered.

Arguing with the glass in the window. Trying to tell it that it's black, but it won't believe you.

Wearing the skin in cold detergents. Stains teasing to be overcome. Little monsters outlining clauses in old contracts.

Wearing the skin. Worn by it. In moments of vomit with napkins against our faces. Fighting the clock. For so many reasons. Winning hardly seems relevant.

We can strip the bear. Mascots of loneliness molesting the charm. Of words almost written. And men unsure. Of what they want.

Dense proteins in the armpit of teras. All this listening makes me want to be heard.

The slaughter pretends to know what to say to them as we lose sight of each other.

It's not over until I'm drunk enough to admit that no one else remembers. What I can't forget.

The liars in their cockpits. Crashing into us.

The never like paste on her tongue. Keeping close what should be distant. Were I ever that sober

Fingers rehearsing touch. Eyes auditioning stares. Her indecision like bubble gum popping between his lips. Messy and broken.

The words we use to describe it feeble at best. The median in the middle of her throat. Words. Fast cars on either side. The apparent collision never occurs. At least not while any one's looking.

I've had discussions with Satan that lasted for years. Debates about God. He says he's real. I say he's not. Who's evil now?

Masks. Showing. Faces. Muscle discarding skin. Thick diapers full of our shit. Bright rashes chronicle the neglect. Chambers of god showing.In coughing quotes from dying friends. You want to be alone. So be it.

Masks. Skin is guilty, but has a great attorney. Skin is guiltily, but is rich enough to buy its freedom. Skin like Velveeta. Turning colors that should never be eaten. I take a little more off until you're bored again.

Destroyed. Impotent at every milestone.

An old man wandering the innards of a girl. Soiled diapers. Broken teeth. In jars beside my bed. Masks. In the time travelled between heart and hand.

Let is go. Let us collide with the path. Each footstep promising progress.

Every breath sending us back.

Even the first demon had a teacher. Even the last demon has to admit. We lied well. Even if not enough.

The salt it makes a mask so perfect. I almost want to wear it.

What I can't hear. In the pauses between the rain. Gnawing on doll's feet. Minor provisions for the blind. The deaf. The dumb. Gods in plain clothes on corners too dark to see. Their faces as they thank us.

What I can't see. Revisions. In thrusts of charcoal. Men. Layers of soot. Dirty chimney. Keeps the smoke in. Bad lies still coming back to challenge the poverty of fallen bridges.

I can't hear them, but I know what they're saying.

Forgotten dogs trying to run on three legs.

Bad dogs. Tails still wagging. Bad dogs. Little women.

Looking for old leashes.

Words enough. Wouldn't you say? Choices. Dying lightning bugs in my jar. I can see it the dark if I have to. Or I can be blind if that is what I want.

The trigger in the seat of her pants. Longing to be squeezed. The bullets in the bend of her thighs. Hoping to penetrate.

Time with its hot cattle prod pushes the hours forward. There are no cowboys anymore. To coral the strays. Nothing to spur the steeds to run. No needles to fat with sacrifice to mend this fraying skin.

The tabloid of touch is all we have now. While I stare up at stars I can no longer name.

The lie has a certain grace when at last you realize the lie is all you have. Stale Saturn's tease the moon. The moon bullies the stars. Until all these clothes are useless. The kaleidoscope of touch bends. Breaks what we were. Into pieces small enough to swallow.

The disease makes us better. If we can allow it.

The irony of flightless birds finally makes sense.

Take your spasms away with you in tiny tears. Loose fit skin that sells for much more than cost. The sleepwalk is the best I can do. Lies untold. Unexpected. And therefore not cruel. Ghost never buried. Let the dead free to scold us. The rulers down our backs keep us staring at the empty blackboard. Chalk dust writes its eulogies. We attempt to measure moments, But they're too small to count. Fingertips at the ready to taste the freedom time has absolved.

Chosen. By design. Broken crayons still try to color in the empty outlines.

This pale solution to such vivid nightmares. Is just to wake up.

Turn off the demons like light switches. Let the darkness decide.

Where I am.

Nowhere. That I can think of.

Poor diseases too long healed. The sports car in his pants shifting gears. Sober engines talking like drunks. Wherever they go. Pretending to care. about helpless ken dolls searching for their penises. Amongst so many dead gods.

If one word could matter that much. Dead jeans attracting thighs too swollen to fit. Leave us alone. Wait for the bookstore. The signing of wasted stories. I've told so many times. The dissection of assholes under microscopes to accurate. Little wolves blowing down big houses.

Absent piglets.

Fail the tongue. Sour darts strike the bulls eye in the bleats of dying lambs. Circumstance evolves. Weighing the blood against the bandages. Long shots. Cold bluffs. Still to be determined.

Lovers. Carbons of dead skin. Old cameras. Still waiting on the negatives to develop.

Lies we should have, but will never tell.

Time. An avalanche of people. Moments. I wish I could remember. Or otherwise prove that I've forgotten.

The hour is my nemesis. In this trail of fragments I can no longer assemble.

The leopard looks. Find its skin on he ass of the elephant. Nothing to regret or to save.

Ghosts too stubborn to argue with.

I don't know how to pick a peach, but I do know how to eat one. Bite hard. And swift. Let the juices run down your chin staining your clothes in sticky traces of the flesh you've consumed.

Then wear those clothes until everyone you encounter can almost taste what was inside you.

The only difference between sedatives and amphetamines are the people who take them. Same reason. Different methods. Every addiction is born in childhood. Some dark face you can't recognize, but fingers you won't forget. Every savior is doused in blood because how else could we relate to them. Recovery is a failure of sorts. A failure to manage our pain with the treatments we've chosen. A failure to prove the art we've made truly belongs to us.

I don't know how to execute a dream, but I do know how to have one. Go to sleep assuming you'll never wake up.

I don't know how to draw a circle, but I do know they're seldom perfect.

I didn't pick the peach, but I tasted it. Summer. Moons I hadn't seen in ages. Arguments explaining why it's never dark enough to see what's above us.

I don't know what hope there is hidden past the stars, but I do know how to find them.

Turn off the lights.

Stop seeing what isn't there.

Thighs like canvas unpainted. The whispers of her dress concealing what had always shown. Liars like poets making the worst things beautiful. Come paint the cage. Making it your home. Name the claws that cut you. Take notes. This is test material.

Choosing her lipstick in shades of revulsion. Save me because I deserve it. Wrtie to all my lies and tell them the party is tomorrow. Gifts are optional.

Warn the snake, it's a thin corruption. I have so much more to learn of betrayal.

Teach me.