The man was picking at the lock. Searching for the key she'd swallowed. The mud in her underwear. Smudges of cunt fracturing eager kings. Short dialogues on why it's over.

Wake up dear, he whispered. In cold ions. Trips of hydrogren too far from the clock. Long shadows trace the journey not taken. Time takes. Doesn't give. The future finds us. In hiccups of then.

Time, she giggled. It doesn't listen.

My love, he said. When you're ready to hear I will tell you. All the things I've never said.

That's a beautiful promise. Still I've heard it before. Too often.

Stumbling strangers. Convinced they know. Where I have been.

Tucking into the time machine. Pirates. Cheated by their treasures.

The dark. Science in her breathing. A catastrophe. Of men. Arranging their needles. Cures not needed. A campaign of flesh for the new disease. Little cancers on her fingertips. And the vaccines that come from knowing. Alone is not temporary.

The art of the child is that the woman never remembers how she came to know. These essentials. Of survival. The art of the child is that the colors happen slowly. So many graves to dig. Too few funerals. It wants to be saved, but I can't.

Spilling my pulse into corpses. Looking forward to being eaten by the zombies. Isn't that just like the woman. And the child. To prefer the sacrifice.

Drawing on cardboard. The poor man's epiphany. I'm here. Now what. Tearing away the color. Flesh. Like melting crayons. Reaches the edges. Eventually.

It's all filled in. Now what?

Love. Like contact lenses. Too close to the eye.

I can see everything. and nothing.

I could blame the sky, but the rain would not stop falling.

Small. Isn't that what we are?

Hearing only half of everything that was said made her consider that everything is not always there. It must be noticed. Nothing can be proven. Our reality is merely the humble malfunctions of infinitely intersecting perceptions. Even so. It is all we have. All that we are.

A nightmare preserved in the sweat stains on a girl's pillow. Waking up is only a contradiciton. Hope spoiling quietly in the hardening crust on discarded latex. Touch is only a means to an end I don't want. The child is incredulous. The woman is deaf.

She sleeps. She dreams. Both light and dark. She sleeps. She wakes. There is no world. Only the difference. Between now and then. Everything is loud. Everything is quiet.

She counts backwards from zero. Assuming she will find the beginning. And finally understand which lies are worth telling.

The dust on the letters filling the air as she tries to determine. What it is she knows. And what she only thinks she does.

It's always cruel to tell the truth. There are no exceptions.

Liars with long yardsticks measure the truth in snickers of quarks. Lonely atoms flirting with the surface of the bomb. We woke up the devil from his nap. And now he wants a lullaby.

The square root tells us how. Work backwards from the negative. Solve for nothing. Ignore the rest. Go there. That the future yields to the whims of fickle flesh. Time only a loud heartbeat in empty hands. Life limping from fist to fist. In games of giving away what has yet to exist.

The man on his page. Stabbing hard blank sheets of paper. Ready eyes blaming the emptiness for what he cannot say.

The anomoly. Weak men. Weaker women. Blame the arithmetic. As their numbers dwindle.

So many of us. So few.

I brace myself for the algebra of his touch. A menagerie of zeros. Coo our exchange of skin. A circus of lips claim our faces. As if time still knew. The proximity of when. The nature of the if. The creaky swing. Almost near enough. To catch itself. As I become the one to find her that way.

Still the x is solved to nothing new.

Laughs the mimick in gelid chokes. A jelly smirk on rigid cheeks. I don't know love. And she doesn't know me. Strangers always. Strangers close enough to strangle each other. Fables taught in peeling skin. The moral always that I'm always naked. They can see all of me. Even from my hiding place.

New skin comes in retches. Bile. Acid. Flaunting up my throat. Spoiled badges of courage no one will read.

Choices. These clown shoes. Make me stumble. No matter how slowly I run. Lovers. These zippers behind my head won't stay closed.

Her face draw on her. By strangers with broken crayons. Her skin a dark outline on a blank page. Still waiting to be filled in.

It's not like I was trying. Was just pretending I knew what to do. With all these people.

The world isn't laughing at me. It doesn't even know I exist.

People. Random thieves. Empty graves. So amny keys we use as bait.

You want it to be over, but you're still sad when they stop trying to take 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.

Testing the terminal with bits of men. That's the only kind there really are. The robot in her underpants racheting his dick tighter in. She's a window. A fragment of moonlight on the eyelids of the blind. The universe in bitter gulps on lemondade. The sugar teasing from between her tits.

You're never too old to to regret losing someone.

But they might be lost contrary to your remorse.

You're never too old to hate yourself. Or to be hated.

Tiem has its kindness. The give of young skin. The press of memory intent to fulfill the wish.

Of lonely people. Tall windows in blind houses. Arguing with the rooms. Beds that won't listen. Nervous pillows pretend to want that stranger that are left.

The glass. In fractions. Gods that can't see through. All the lies I have to tell to keep heaven close.

Trusting still in the logical manias of discarded skin.

Let me sleep. I don't want to wake up. Knowing what I knew then.

Pretend you can hear her. Nod in sync with the motion of her lips. The impetuous freight she calls words will have to be orgasm enough. For now. Or until then.

Catch the stop signs in her glances. Subtle monsters put on their mittens before pointing her in the right direction.

I think I was always ugly. Just not in the ways I used to think I was. Shoot the lion. Save the cub. There was always a solution. It's just all I could see was the problem.

Skin like battery terminals. Press them to that node. Wake the electric. Set your time machines to auto pilot. Count the persons you almost were.

Follow them. Until you're certain you've been all of those people they say are you.

Escape your skin as you would any Alcatraz. Through the biggest shit holes.

Fragile masks embark upon her face. In nervous sprints. In calm marathons. The decapitated devil collects his horns. Grinning all the while. The child chases her nightmare too long after waking. It's the weakness of touch to want more. It's the wisdom of skin wait for it to come to us.

The clown. The ghost. The skeleton. Characters in a satire called the self. Laughing at everything. Disappearing too soon. Emerging from moist grave desperate for fresh skin.

The porcupine in her eye beginning to make sense. As all those needles found their target.

Seeing she soon discovered was merely a consequence of blindness.

Corpulent cockroaches in the corners of her breath. All her poisons only make them stronger.

One color more. Sheets coming undone. In fits of skin. As if we were alive once. Or something similar. More than just time in its infinite travels. Or the remnants its fire leaves behind.

Just colors. Dots anticipating the sun. In sharp bends of light that break too often.

What was easy is hard again. Preachers on the pulpit blame Satan. But I know, amongst us the devil is innocent.

I see the answers. I just never write them down. I psh the switch on the lamp still expecting darkness.

I'm not alone, but it's too close. Gathering her robots. She warns them tomorrow is arrogant. And we are merely the consequence.

Of lazy gods and spoiled children.

Spiders on the porch. Darkness wakes the web. Laughing through her fear. Her embarrassment at having been born. In stages full and bright with she tries on the threat. Patient to let it consume her.

Her eyes exploding with people. Parachutes of skin that navigate her fall. The bile of hope fouls her dress as her cloud wretches. She continues to climb. Noticing too late that the steps to the bottom are so far apart.

She sells herself in little bags. Small handfuls of change. She removes her face. A vending machine of woman. Doling out fractions of touch. In minor orgasms.

The lie of the self is that it wants happiness. Or is even capable of producing it. The majestic feats of drug we imagine are within our means.. The abyss of consciouness only chemicals can quell. Delicate kisses of ocean on dry beaches. Deposting the dead in the same places from which they took us.

Stealing the living.

These empty hands helpless to stop them.

Coming and going as they please.

Eternal. Uninterested in the mating rituals of broken men

Spiders on the porch. Neglectful of their webs. Paralyzed prey waiting to be eaten. Light bulbs inside the wounds. Switched on again. Illuminating the disease.

The constant.

The gods of lesser men.

Everywhere I am. Sultry lies in the cough of skin. As if I could go that far. In either direction. See you there. Make sense of these long equations we call touch.

Ants on the cake. Cockroaches in the frosting. The ensuing explanations of dead men. Long novels searching for characters. The density of inhibition convincing me that time was mistaken.

Them. Overhearing. Every minute of until. Escaping. Realizing nothing was the same. Except what had always been.

Awoken. By the sound of dying. Or those that would pretend. To know how close it is.

The pig smiled. Bloody. Lacking cheeks. Laughed loud. Through crispy skin.

Feeble are the moments that insist on this life happening. Dead snakes sifting with poison. Wearing the fangs. Flaunting the footprints. In frozen eyes. Seeing. In thick ears tempted to hear. Fat tongues. Trying to say.

Everything.
Is strange.

Lies I wish to live. Sheets I cannot replace. Though they are stained. Words I cannot take back, though they've never been said.

All these gods shouting my name in unison. As if I exist. As if I matter at all in these numerous worlds we vainly attempt to claim.

Everything is strange.

All these paradises are tentative. Every curiosity is a threat. As the tree leans in closer to tempt us with knowledge.

I don't want to know. Never did.

Everything is strange.

As her panties come off. The sincerity of the lie is medicine enough.

Everything is strange.

Everyone is a stranger.

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.

Years she said. With Vaseline in her eyes. Cloudy and slick with a devastating permanence. Dimes in the washer waiting to be found. Ten more wishes I'll never get to make. Clothes on the floor looking too much like I'm still in them. Breathing in the stabs of moonlight that slither through vinyl and glass bars.

Moments that strut out the front door only to later sneak in the back. Shame. Ringing dead doorbells and listening to dial tones. The weak songs that put me to sleep when drugs disappoint. As they often will.

Just like people. Only more loyal. More human.

A lifetime. Several I think. And still trying to understand. Anything at all.

Evil? Of course. Good? Just as much so. Shit in the snow. Almost too much contrast. To see which is which.

Shaky hands open the door. Close the window. It's cold outside. It's hot within. Leaning close. For the first taste. A negative slowly developing upon her lips.

Then becomes forever. Now becomes if.

Photographs of faces. Calm tragedies occur in silence. Heard only by the deaf. The words spew in shattered ricochets of tongue. Nervous. Putty cheeks offer truth as their only confession. Ignoring every wish. She bites down.

Destroying the fountain.

It's different now. I am. Different. Life. Pieces of brick. Crumbling. Still enough to walk upon. Fall down. Quietly. Scrape knees already skinned. No injuries. Just muscle visible. Still.

Stubborn bones. Arguing with the bandage. Useless cycles. Heal. Tear again. Until only your own words know who you are.

It would be naive to say I've ever known anyone other than myself. It would be weakness to admit how often I've wanted to.

Know them.

Be known by.

Matter. At all. After the night is over.

Matter. What is it?

Just pieces of oblivion endlessly making us smaller. Matter. Fragments of forever whoring the lie of touch.

That I could feel. The bony shape of trust. The morbid density of lust. Or repair the the balloon before it pops.

Matter.

My molecules invading his.

Like we were already back there. And the future couldn't stop us. Because everything had already happened.

I was only talking to myself. Afraid to say it out loud. Camping out in my skin. Thinking the whole time about being somewhere else again. I was reading silently. Because that's always how I read him. Turning pages in the dark. Feeling for the impressions of the letters.

People are like long division. I like to do it short. Upside down. Discarding the remainders.

I always listened, but it was hard to hear. A bark is a bark no matter what it's trying to say. The world spills in, no matter your barricades. Pieces of finger. Bits of faces. A docile cancer that begins in the head and suddenly erupts into every extremity. The comfort of touch slowly poisoning our ample purgatory.

The problem isn't that we're waiting for heaven, but that it's not waiting for us.

It's not the dying that's a problem. It's how long it takes.

People are time. In its most basic state. The thrust of space pressing down hard. On tender atoms. Undecided. The grin of the quark. The frown of the electron. The spatial dances of the tiny elements that makes us feel so large.

And so small.

I think I missed your call. I miss many calls trying to decide when to answer.

The patterns. The flaws form them. These imperfections become our identity. Little doses of antidote slowly killing me. Lost Alices. Growing so large. Then shrinking down to nothing. Time pretending to know where I am it. A realtor selling empty spaces.

Cutting the cake into ample slabs. Of all of us. Metaphors stabbed into the paws of foxes running away from the hounds. The fiction fluctuates. In wheezes of when. I can't remember. Names. Faces. Stalled in moments sneaked away from us. By waiting. Pretending that life goes on.

Clay pots in the sun. Eyes the shape. Words the kiln. Until everything is hard.

Tall grass in the shade. Sifting the wind through the stale arguments it often has with strangers to my bed. Ghosts with long tails wagging learning how to be dead. Or at least forget what alive was.

He had the truth on index cards. Short speeches he'd only make afterward. When the sheets were pungent. Flaccid from souvenirs of sweat. And the perfume of womanhood searching for an exit. In scribbles on the back of his neck. Like the rings of Saturn. Or orphans hawking matches. On dark corners in bright worlds overrun with callous rich men.

Tall plants on narrow windowsills. Pretending to grow as time slowly passes. Chunks of gravity between us. Brings the sky closer. Pushes the ground further away.

There may have be ladders. Or ascension mechanisms of some sort. Steps of barbed wire. Nooses of laughter. The beauty of women is in their effortless power. Just sit. Look pretty and wait for the world to stop spinning.

Her eyes were closed. His penis was close to her lips. She didn't really taste anything other than disappointment. She opened her eyes are ttried to imagine something more elegant.

She could feel the cotton trying to find her as she dosed the darkness. Long gowns insisting she wear them. Even if they didn't fit.

Take it apart later she told herself. The pieces will always be available. Blame the mediator she shouted. This false prophet called our skin. I take it off. It just grows back again.