The autumn of her lips falling. Mediocre suicides. Stabbing. Heels and nail polish. Long holidays. Talking to no one. In deadly whispers. Of how many of me there are. Now that i've learned how. To calculate forever.

Divide by zero. Ignore the logic. Of self-proclaimed good men. Try on the dress. Be pretty for only a moment. Any longer doesn't suit her. The broken ladders. The empty stairwells. That want to climb, but can't go any higher.

The bite of oblivion in her lips. The Arithmetic of having been tasted. Lose me. The time line is corrupted. Lie to me. About when. Or if it ever mattered.

The only real drug is us. The only true addiction is if.

Turn on the siren. I'm a criminal. Find me. Still trying to arrange. These stepping stones to heaven.

I could tell the world. Convince it that I'm somewhere else.. Because I am. But why push it waway when we've come so close.

To proving. This suicide is not so selfish.

The rabbit in the orchestra. Was tuning its harp. 280 degrees at most she declared. It's just blood. Years of fruitless sex. Evolution not evolving. And so I am. Both perpetual and fleeting. As much as any comma is. Lost in the throes of rogue sentences. And ignorant paragraphs. As if the clock could measure. Or in any way quantify. The depth or currents of the ocean. Or speed up this drowning.

Life comes in sobs. Huffs of others' skin. Cloying and oppressive. Words like potions mark the start. And the finish. Liars tell their stories to the deaf. And I hear them.

Dull scissors cut out the paper dolls. Shaky hands unfold the results. I go too far. Too many of me. Too thin. Plain white rainbows sneak in after the rain. Offering a path to the sun, but no colorso at all. To accompany it.

The brake pedal in her heart full of fluid. The engine hot and trembling. With places she must go. Dirty pit stops on the road to nothing.

Lovers like roadkill.

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.

Carve the hole. Deep enough. A renaissance of touch. In practical liaisons. Remember. Forget. I don't care who you are after we're over. It's only circumstance. The dollhouse Trying so hard to look like the real thing.

I don't care who I was then. Or who I'll be after. I am. Now. Whatever this might be. Candy house in the woods. Falling down. The abandoned misled by the sweet.

Blood like umbrellas. When it's not raining Men like elevators. Navigating skyscrapers of skin. I lose them, in the afterward. The pale telepathy of the testosterone. Wanting so much. And so little.

Every thing's the same.

Nothing is.

Find the hole. Lie to it.

mellow bunnies on pretty paper drugs. the swamp. too sure of my struggle. death is a greeting card. it matters almost as much as it doesn't. ugly little love songs. dirty crayons coloring in black and white. every word is a colorform. waiting to be shrunk down into nothing.

silly cadavers making ice cream sundaes out of embalming fluid. The morgue is the place I love. Rife with mouths that cannot argue. The logic. The madness. Of waking up every morning is caucus enough to discard them. My eyes are my attorney. My fingers are my jury. Innocent isn't even an option.

But I know that I'm not guilty.

Delirium comes with many insights. anyone know where to find a good monkey replicator? ask me after I've finished translating my vomit. Primates on the patio leave behind just enough shit for me to determine I don't want to go there.

Cadavers on the walls. Smelling softly of desperate men. Open sores in his timelines where vagrant hours fester. Shadows on the bed. Fingers striking ambivalent keys. Her breathing. Just another songs he can't quite play.

The fat of words in her throat. Rain paused on the glass. The storm awaits her next command. The shrug of the pillow against her head. Alone at last. Nothing to spoil the villains' coup. Fallen always. Now they can see it.

Needles in her fingers. Calculate reality. In the distant hums of wagging dicks. And the stutters of broken men. She drags out the scale from between her legs. And waits for him to notice the blood.

Gentle is the anxious skin. Irreversible conditions of the flesh. Faces like ice cream melting. Sticky, sweet dead things luring the scavengers. Doll's eyes and vultures necks. Empty clothes at the foot of the bed paraphrasing the wrench of my toes as I slip into that familiar conundrum of touch. Naked time lines. And the people who would flaunt them.

Not afraid. Not deterred by. Consequence. Weak demons shoving their blunt needles into dead skin. Arguing with puppets. Accusing the stage. Minor treasons in lengthy alibis of men. Weak cures for strong diseases. The tornado of when. I was not alone. Or didn't know how well i was.

I had my gods ready. I had yards of skin to use against them. Negotiate my ideal hell. A carpet of lovers to burn in. And no excuses for anything else.

Cut those strings That make me woman. Sew up this hole to which I am indebted. Dance the puppets in your grip. Spoiling the poison between us.

Remembering dead volcanoes. The rain on the glass not deciding which image was real. She threw all her photographs away. To begin again. With nothing.

It's the best way to start. The only way to end.

Seldom as we are. Perfect theorum in the calculations of Pythagarus. The geometry of touch yielding to the formula of division.

Even those small clouds can make it rain. Even little claws are able to draw blood.

Dead volcanoes erupting with pieces of skin. Empty becomes her.

Still the kitten is not to blame. For the scrathes on his face.

And dying is not a disappointment.

The room. Opaque. Stiff blood bleats the bandage soft. The world. Not there. Or forgetting. Bashful murder sserved on cracked plates. The full of the dark dense in her stare. While she contemplated stealing the last of the dog's leg. Just the over she told herself as the joint finally split. The bones in her grasp as thin as flesh.

Drums. Lazy footsteps on the mauve of midnight. Broken lipsticks color the kiss of darkness. Grey again. Surgeons. Every moment. Cutting closer to the ribs. Until there are only tits.

The solvent. Thighs like lye burn the spills into dead skin.

The fraction. Her fingers like battery terminals. The room still not lit.

It's just as well. I rather not see.

No isn't there when she wake up, but she rememeers.

Empty-handed postmen. All the letters they yet to deliver.

Dwcisions in clay. Stiffening the hands that must make them.

Lost. Daring eyelashes at the bottom of the basin. Bottles. Extinguished like so many birthday candles. Wishes that don't come true. Made in the camouflage of faces we assume to recognize.

Sparse anemia's. Toy with the the cure. The basis of disease being weakness. Or otherwise the delusion of strength. From fractured hands to broken ears. The song resolves itself regardless of my involvement. I'm just there.

Lost.

Cut grass turning brown on a busy sidewalk.

Immunity arrives in parts. Jugs of sleep to drink too much of. Threats of vaccine in every lust.

Lost.

Dirty footprints stolen from the darkness. Quenches cherries still ripe enough to remember what is gone.

It's the truth. Albeit a disputed one.

Long branches twist the sunlight into knots. All we get are punches. Glass doors wearing people like condoms. Revolving until everything is said without a sound.

It's a lie. These pieces of skin on my plate looking like people looking for names I can't remember. Watches not keeping time. Not our time together. Or apart. The anguish of the universe. That it can't subtract. It must keep expanding until we are all alone.

Time digests and expels us. We nourish it. We make it sick. Until our disease is its only sustenance. Our only desire is to live. Our only purpose is to die.

Vomiting up each other in perfect meter, but flawed rhyme. Adding to these heavy skins.

I dreamed my cactus died. The pot fell over. A sneeze of dirt and ceramic opened up its concealed grave. It had no roots at all. No life inside it.

But it's falling revealed a discovery. Underneath it another. Bigger. Greener. Sharper still.

Always on the surface the dead thing.

Underneath it.

Life.

Cardboard statues in the rain.

It's a lie. That's true, but it's a truthful one.

Talk louder the mockingbird said. Your Atticus isn't very convincing. I was there. I saw everythhing, but the words are more than I can lift. We were in the attic. Scoring the last window left to break. Throwing our lives hard at absent strangers.

Groins grinning broad in permanent marker. The mockingbird's song tracing around her shifting skin. Truth taking its photographs. Destroying the negatives. The lawyer with his speech interrupted. The victim on trial yet again.

Talk louder. Let me listen. The mockingbird begged. I have nothing without the songs of others.

Like anyone, I can only give as much as I've been given.

The attic. Plastic forks weighing the meat left after all the flesh has been taken.

Plastic forks weighing nothing. Chemical burns at the beginning of every conversation. Neglected acids trying to convince us to use them.

Little band-aids taking with them so much skin.

She was occupied with to solving the maze on her thumb. Checking the mannequins for belly buttons. Sealing the envelopes with nothing inside them. Trying to be like everyone else. Thinking there's still time enough to be that person.

The maze of her thumbs took her all over the small universe of her hand. Little touches and big ones. Words never written on paper. The solution was obvious, though hardly welcome. Be content where you are. No need to know its origins. Don't go looking for exits you'd rather not find.

Such is the nature of listening. That we hear things we'd rather not have. The artist too high to stop the brush. From telling his secret. The man explaining himself to no one. I'm not that high because if I was I wouldn't be able to see the bottom.

There he was like a rooster. Shattering all that darkness. Microscopic megaphones of skin shouting heavens in our ears. The buttons falling off of shirts we've worn too long. And me, not caring what shows in their abesnse.

She was wearing the mattress one person at a time. Like a borrowed lollipop. A giant condom. Herself what was left in it after everything else had been done.

Glad it was over.

She was undressing. As carefully as she could with such an audience. The future frowning. Disappointed at what she'd done to it. The past apologizing for what it had let her become. She was swimming. In little pills she liked to call coping skills. She was drowning in trying to live. And she was doing it so well.

She was watching television. Imagining herself in people that she had never been. Manipulating time like some vindictive addict. More Kirk than Picard as she told history to go fuck itself.

Turning it all. Every lie to her advantage. Erasing the moment with a dose of something stronger. Or at least a better friend.

People. Like shoe laces coming apart. She could bend down and remake the knot, but it would only come undone again. She could try to reason with the jesters. But it's their job to make a joke of us.

Counting the itches in her underwear she can calculate how much sex would be required to stifle her depression. Gain herself control anew. How slowly the flower dies after being plucked. The thumb of the clitoris writing stories in places no one can see. Touch like a stone sending ripples throughout so much stillness. The skin of the water cut. Letting everything in.

Counting her emails she can estimate the last time she had sex. And with reasonable accuracy if she ever will again.

Picking seashells. Eyes of ocean. Fingers of sand. Sorting fragments into reasonable bargains. She was ready to pick the apple, but it picked her instead. This garden is too small anyway. I'd rather be unhappy. I'd rather hate myself than them.

Counting the years between she brainstorms a new protagonist. All those other stories done with her. She searches her thoughts for fresh heroes and villains. Knowing every story requires both. And that sometimes they are the same person.

She asked him which he wanted to be. And he answered her.

I'd rather be the hero, but I can be the villain if that's what you want.

In the box. With all four sides missing. No entry for the worm or the poison. Just dirt accumulating where the joints are weak. Torn envelopes humming like women in heat. The blood of little girls percolating between their legs. Millipedes and scorpions in fairy tales about the men. Charming princes and valiant villains all too sour for dessert.

In her bed. With dead arms weighing her down. Those tiny monsters so heavy. So strong. Like first words. And last ones. Or everything in between that makes either matter. Telling the stories in raw alarms. Woken up to nothing. And everyone. Broken metaphors. The pencil too close to the paper. The moment too deep inside her. They're gone, but still there.

Prominent fables turn lessons learned back on the teacher. Saviors with hollow hands try to catch her.

She finally stops counting. She knows there's skin enough even without the bones.

I don't want to change my name. You do it instead. I don't want to be someone else.

The oregano scent still potent in the armpits of her fingernails. The sausage flavor on her lips far from dissipating. She cried from the onions. Tears she never knew were there. Sniffly and weak. Her sleeves pushes up paste her elbows, still falling down into the muck at her wrists.

Raw pork. Pin chicken. In heavy cuts of marinade. Like sex. Like undressing. Like tasting genitalia for the first time. The hint of piss that makes it easy to swallow dead things. Easier still to spit them out.

The evolution of sanity in burps and giggles. Insomniac princesses fretting the mattress. The apple. So sweetly poisoned. The faiarest drug is our ignorance. Mosquitoes without their wings still find a way to bite.

It's not the stinger that itches. It's the way we pull it out.

Children. With stolen names. The counted raindrops on the window's screen. Little scraps of skin stitched into the face I try to wear. While I wait for the new one to grow over it.

Long toenails pulling away from the footprint. The staircase in her throat deciding which way is down. Considering whether there is a difference.

(The)n(or)ever

She found herself. Dirty water all over clean dishes. He said why be so hard on yourself? The world will do that for you. She began to explain about clouds of thought dense with rain, but she stopped herself. In time to notice he was trying hard, but failing to care enough. So she just told him she had to be sure she was in the world, not just it in her. Those tiny cliches of skin multiplying until I'm just another no one.

The autumn was soft. Colorless. The train tracks were always empty as she drove over them. People like right turns on red. Double dutch. Leaning. Bobbing. Jerking. Trying to find the opening in. The outcome in fortunate distillations of the beginning.

The short films in her head. Amphibian hearts. Positing the advantages of selfishness. Little lunges change the toad quickly. She prefers to do it slowly. Find the man. Bury him after.

Turn the leaf over on the fairy godmother to find her blowing Jacob Marley. Turned on by his chains.

The truth about ghosts is that they're always there. Laughing at the burden of bones. and the folly of flesh. Pitying the living for the tiny world they're lost in.

What you need to know about women is that they lie. They say it's over when it's not. They say the lion is full just before it eats them. They say so little in so many words. Especially when they're lonely.

Counting on those sexy skirts to offset. All the knots they can't undo.

Like words only louder. Strategies of surrender contemplate attacks. Breaths of gunpowder pretending they have bullets left.

Tell me there's a nightclub where we can go. Where all this violence isn't only metaphor. All this sex not just hyperbole. Is there any place at all like the one in my head? Where once it's dark it stays that way?

When the ghosts visit, they don't take me anywhere. They just ask where I want to go. And I say the future isn't something I want to see. And the past isn't something I've forgotten.

Can you take me anywhere else?

There you are. Simple Satan's gambling my skin. Stray saviors painting white sheets red. It's her prom in liquid eyes. Dancing like rain upon the missing glass in windows. It's tomorrow already. Too late. Too soon. Wasn't. Won't be. Juggling those apples with so many missing fingers. Won't be tasting them at all. With all those bottomless baskets playing attorney to my death sentence.

I'm not a seed. I can't grow it. I'm not soil. I can't nurture. I'm just the weather that decides if either will matter. Everything else is just the folly of circumstance. Long overcoats left without anything to hide. Naked hangers laughing off the clothes we're in. The lottery of condition calling out numbers no one has picked. Warm legs on the carpet memorizing steps to dances they'll never dance with anyone else.

I'm a meal. Meant to be consumed. Dirty dishes waiting to be licked. I'm an appetizer. Meant to accentuate the hunger that is there. High heels for the heart. Soften the curves of that ugly muscle. As if it has anywhere to run.

They were close. Junkyard's dogs protesting. Drooling novels of touch. Chewing. Gnawing. Discarded flesh. Like aliens examining their discoveries. The universe laughing at us. Because the glass is just us.

My fortune is that I'm lost.

Enough to spill. Spill a little bit. And no more. That'll do. A tantrum of skin embezzles my attention. Every encounter is a sudden accident. Each kiss is whiplash. I search for my head amongst the debris. But when I finally find it I decide I was better off before I did. Happiness is the seat belt. Sex is the windshield. And we were hoping to crash.

I like my wounds to be vocal. I like my bandages caked with blood. Brittle and sewn to the scab. Muddy watercolors of the last time I felt anyone. I like infection. The itch too deep to scratch.

I was driving. Steering with my eyes. Seeing with my hands. As lovers demand of their victims. As touch requires of its students. I wanted to learn. I wanted to know. What the world had been keeping from me. What drugs there were to make life bearable. How many flavors of people they came in. I wanted to know.

I could tell the story whenever I wanted, but I had only that one chance to live it.

Such is the quality of love. It grows too slowly and lust is so impatient. No time to wait for the paint to dry on the colors we thought we wanted when there are so many blank walls I've yet to test.

I'm better off with bare wood anyway.

The splinters are perfect lovers. Gentle enough. In comparisons like dog tracks. Corsets of men. Shaping my bones to fit other women's bodies. The world is always unprepared for the beautiful. Shocked at the slightest hint of compassion. The world doesn't want to make friends. It just wants people. Lots of people. To displace its emptiness. And people are the same.

No paper. Just words without anywhere to go.