the numbers stopped counting too long ago to still taste.
jagged templates of skin layered like abandoned graves.

time is a solvent. that turns mercenaries into beggars.

the body is an equation. doomed to be reconciled only in death.

sometimes we cut slowly with worn blades that bend to easily.
the parable of our contentment stumbling over its choices.

eyeless dolls in sugar dresses. swaying to songs only they can hear.

sometimes we cut quickly with claws
that grow sharper the more that we use them.

angry kittens in a sinking basket.

time looks in our windows. with big eyes and clenched fists.

we pretend not notice as it chews on the glass. 

slivers of when scrape the veins.
in severed arms and borrowed skins.

we chew on the sky.
hungry for an adversary.

our plastic eyes
unable to see the obvious.

we pause the end.
and tuck it away in our pockets.

full of dirty coins
desperate to be spent.

we polish the mirrors.
betrayed by their reflections.

we plead guilty.
though we know not what our crime is.

the numbers ripen. the colors sour.
and we begin again.

convinced by curious atoms.
that the decay is magnificent.

shattered candies cutting
sweetly at love's moist lips.

the hours tie their knots.
as the truth hardens.

we chase the remainders
as the math peels away our skin.

love is just a fraction.
the common denominator is us.

give me a name. let me wear it for a while.
as if i might be someone to be remembered.

let the ground bleed. as we sail upon its wound.
while time listens silently. too austere to grieve.

pull on the nails. rattle the chains.
dismantle our cages. though our prisons remain intact.

we spend our lives counting the intersections.
turning into the collisions.

time crawls inside our skins. a dubious advocate.
all snagged zippers and torn seams.

patently waiting for us to recognize the stranger within.

jack rabbit. jack rabbit. how heavy are your feet.

in the spoiled terrain of predators and thieves.

running too near to stories told with heavy sticks and crumbling stones.

wearing the world too loudly as you race against tomorrow.

the tunnel is long enough that the light is choked.

as you suffer in the stale capitulations of races already lost.

formulas and zeros conspire with gravity.

until every footstep becomes a noose.

the fable sheds its weighted robes.

a carnival of martyrs in temptation's soiled clothes.

run. run as fast as you can. while the world is disappearing at your back.

run. because the end is always in pursuit.

the broken bell still chimes when struck.

even as split hammers fail to resolve their dichotomy.

the setting sun floods the sky. with its temporary apocalypse.

a million little ends that eventually become tomorrow.

time injects its medicine. as if life is a disease to be cured.

the vacant chairs collect their shadows. as the table waits for us to sit.

there is the meal. all the dead things we take as nourishment.

even as they overwhelm us.

the pencil marks linger on the corners. as we attempt to draw our maps.

ambivalent arbiters in a negotiation of abandoned skin.

the table trembles as our empty plates exhale.

diligently calculating the cost of our hunger. 

touch punctuates our skin. as we stumble through its the stale revisions.

stories better left for another day.

time parses our expectations. as we fumble with the knots in voices.

hungry machines left to idle again.

love pulls on the zippers beneath our flesh. unexpectedly opening concealed entrances.

awakening dormant monsters.

distance gathers its decimals. as we surrender to the lingering equations.

trust solves for the remainder. 

change is all cobwebs and kittens.
ugly tremors and broken fingers.

lingering games that no one wins.
heavy skins worn much better by anyone else.

bitten pieces of abandoned puzzles.
dubious stories written in someone else's words.

charm the distance with our remaining coins.
purchasing their vacant wishes.

digging for treasure swallows us whole.
quiet choices reconcile the math.

truth is a function of touch.
though we continue counting.

long after there is nothing left.

 obtuse corners tell their stories. in seldom bandages.

shallow voices wear their truth. in tangled strings.

time is only a ghost. a paper blade selling old wounds.

flesh is only a series of stones. falling from torn pockets.

a perilous ascent. bargaining with knotted ropes.

the world is full of meandering forests. and melting candy houses.

we are alone on our path.

with our heavy picnic baskets. 

knocking on doors. 

wondering who will answer. 

 curious machines bargain with their ends. conflating choice and consent. 

all these flawed maps of our own creation. mercilessly cutting through our paths. 

we linger in the sharp sober of our failed devotions.

skinless monsters in the beds of sleeping damsels. 

kneading our spent promises. condemned to the atropy of expectation. 

passengers in our own flesh. 

exchanging faces with strangers. 

torn pockets flirt with gravity. 

the distance already convinced that we've gone too far. 

simple equations swallow our voices. forgetting puckers its graves. 

we live in the corners. stabbing the void. waiting for the light to speak.

the little lies that we spent all our pennies to purchase.  

corroding at the bottom of an empty well. 

every moment culpable in a lingering treason. 

our skin bears the creases. our minds insist the folds. 

time writes its lessons in our blod. 

tangled puppets pull on their strings. 

the end comes without applause. 

gravity forgets us. once we've fallen too far.
a series of small cuts in time's wizened wrist.

serve as our map. as we navigate this expiring flesh.

we push closer to the center.
fragile monsters slouching on their crumbling horns.

choke on the ugly choices that have stranded them.

the distance pauses.
a slender rope suspending a weighted bridge.

we run. our feet made of dust and clay.

toward what we know not.
except away from where we are.

turning on the fickle parable of touch.
dutifully committed to love's brutal abattoir.

sometimes we are simple. others we are complex.

easily manipulated by the various creases in our skin.

we chew on the soiled pillows that cover our unmade beds.

twisting on the cusp of love's diluted poisons.

feral opportunists on epiphany's shrinking stage.

unaware that time is a promise that can't be kept.

i could almost say you loved me. but that simply can't be true.

can a thief love what he's stolen. can a predator love what he's killed.

sometimes the math lies to us. and pretends that there's something left.

 blunt needles prepare their doses of poison. our atoms thoughtlessly colliding.

all our tender lies calcifying. as we fumble to bandage the truth's deeper cuts.

time presses against the glass. an orchestra of discarded strays.

flesh keeps its ledgers. an ugly accumulation of our burgeoning debts.

lust invents its dubious medicines.

for diseases so profoundly rooted that we are nothing without them.

the lurch of wanting turns us inside out.

everything we are exposed.

we voraciously consume every touch.

stubbornly convinced that they are saving us.

even as we take our last breath.