the answer was patient.
even as curious as it was.

the obvious questions. 
all needle and thread.

yawning over a growing singularity of holes.
a stubborn wizard strangled by his own curtain. 

time turned to gravel in his throat. 
moments interrupted.

his decaying words. 

the truth held its breath.
and knotted its ropes.

a cacophony of choices.
in a deaf world.

a picture taken.
a door left open. 

the cat discarded her whiskers.
the dog swallowed his tail. 

grandmother smiled. 
as the wolf crawled into her bed. 

 take the glass. let it linger on her face. an unopened box.

its contents a condition of how long it's been waiting. 

who we are stutters. a graveyard full of perfect corpses.

and funerals unattended. 

the dress is torn. the child is naked. 

time closes its eyes. and the bruises fade. 

the doors close. but do not lock. 

we're only raindrops in someone else's flood.  

our hands full of melted crayons. as the colors stain our skin. 

we're only coins. in the fists of giants.

wondering what can still be bought.

with the little that remains.  

cold windows shift their parodies. to the contempt of curious skin. 

the stifled bark of decisions made. wear their cloaks in dying embers. 

the ache of the hunt swallows. the angry and the insignificant. 

dull knives tell their story. in soiled sheets left on empty beds. 

frail assassins discard their  smiles and wait. for the truth to place its bets. 

the math betrays us. as we fumble with the appetite of our decisions. 

softly speculating the integrity of its structure. as the world collapses. 

empathy simmers in the fitful parody of loss. the slender contrition of absent gods. 

the wind holds its breath. the sun closes its eyes. as we divide what remains of this flesh. 

cowed by the certainty of touch  exposed by love's loose buttons. 

the nail bends because the hammer is too heavy. 

we pinch the wound. spoiled by the blood. dispensed in ugly lessons. as time wrestles with the stubborn zippers under our skin. 

the ceiling collapses because the sky is too dense. 

everything is quiet. all our words stolen by the distance. 

we wait. 

stubborn warts festering on tomorrow's lips. 

the song ends because there's no one listening anymore. 

tender predators navigate the mazes.  loud enough to make us listen. 

torn footprints on empty staircases. lead us softly into trembling futures. 

the mad wolf polishes his fangs. while the piglets fiddle with their fragile houses. 

our stories easily betray us. even as we move to find the moral. 

the distance presses. all our steps corrupted by time's thoughtless pendulum. 

the monsters scurry. more victims than we care to acknowledge. 

the thieves keep counting. all the things they've taken.

long after we no longer need them. 

 the angles vary. particular of extent. jagged words carve their bloody path from lips to throat. 

perspective tells its stories. in lingering constants. 

we dance on the point of the needle. destroyed by the smallest deviation. 

drowned by the sour equations that inevitably drag us home. 

the timeline curves. a snake twisting around shattered limbs. choices choke on splinters of how. as we continue to run on our broken bones. 

distance draws its maps. with the scars of forgotten wounds. 

we are merely travelers. 

in a suicide of intersecting roads.