time has simple rules. but touch is more complicated. a long hallway dense with doors we must unlock.
we spin on gravity's slender strings. a catastrophe of atoms barely connected by the diminishing forces of circumstance.
skin has obvious parameters. but want possesses infinite variables.
we dance on the decaying inertia of arrogant choices. a cascade of expectation erupting.
every window shattered. every room corrupted.
we push the edge away. tumbling embers negotiate the abyss.
the flame is paused.
we slither into the dicarded skins. and remind the imposters.
that we were alive once.
if only for an instant.
slouching utopias scour our grief.
for the tenuous poisons that
that once made us whole.
we balk at the simple mechanisms
that grunt out our lives.
while crippled time machines throb in our throats.
stubborn actors in masks we can't remove.
no more subtle grins to pretend we can be saved.
as we auction off the remains of our skin.
every touch more fragile than the last.
hollow stages quiver beneath
the weight of our discontent.
bitten apples turn sour
waiting for us to taste
how sweet they once were.
the numbers travel through our skin. the quiet violence of apathy.
we chase the distance. exhausting every step.the truth doesn't know our names. and doesn't care.
the solvency of love is a brutal expectation.
small puzzles scatter their pieces across the whole of our lives.
smothering us in broken images.
the math is so simple that we fail to believe it.
when cracked windows lose their purchase on our shame.
brief collisions swallow our voices.
empty shoes abandoned in the doorway.
drowning in the footprints left behind.our desires discipline the math.
orphaned numbers in puzzles made of skin.
little fires chasing strays.
we count out loud. daring anyone to listen.
rabid fools tamed by inertia.
sharp pieces of candy sweet enough to bleed for.
fleeting orbits determine our trajectory.
stung by gravity.
we embrace the fall.
the grin of gravity is vast as we tease the fall. overconfident in our plastic wings.only the sky knows what we look like from above.
frail gods in heavy robes. biting at the wind.
the truth is a curious venom. gently peeling away calloused skin.
time is a fickle mistress. draped in her soiled sheets. singing her broken songs.
the journey is a paradox. how close we come is the same as how far we've gone.
the apex is a simple lie. a forgotten name that still lingers at those abandoned intersections.
we see everything. and nothing. orphaned arbiters of empty staircases.
only the bottom knows what we look like from below.
cold fingers grab at the wind.paper skin bends helplessly against time's blunt edges.
little cuts overwhelm what remains of their shape.
eyes keep count. fingers press the curtain.
a brief shudder of clarity preceeds submission.
their machinations all spoiled meat and dirty windows.
tempting strangers discard their disguises.
the stairs tremble. as we make our way down.
stranded in the perpetuity of change.
no one left to remember the brittle thrust of our anticipation.
shouting at the math.
because our arithmetic has betrayed us.
the machine is ample savior when cleft in the treble of contempt.
as stilted orators infiltrate our thoughts.
wizened hunters unfold their blades.
as the cold cuts its questions into their math.
how deep does the forest dig into their steps.
how earnest is the conviction of consent.
the distance is a vicious measure of the truth behind our faces.
a curious confluence of tearful clowns and laughing strangers.
time laps at the blood.
as much a bandage as it is a weapon.
forgotten strangers suckle at the scars on our wrists.the crumbling skeletons of rancid memories.
time is a mysterious drug. growing more powerful the less that we have of it.
a dull blade that scrapes our skin despite our petulant defiance.
we were alive once. in the thimble of its hysteria. wild prey kicking at the hunt.
voices crushed under their words. puppets strangled in their strings.
feral beasts. destroyed by the simple arithmetic of touch.
simple gestures taste our flesh.
the fickle grammar of anticipation
tallies the coins we've thrown into the well.a grief carefully spent
on spoiled meat and fractured bones.
continues telling its stories to the cinders of consent.
the voice is a kingdom. the mind is its war.
time paces under our skin.
both narrator and protagonist.
we grip the curtain.
with broken fingers.
devastated to discover the illusion.
shallow cuts barely bleed.
tender words fail as bandages.
until everything is stained in red.
the box in the corner has my name on it. but it isn't mine.
the room that it sits in is otherwise empty. except for the shadows that it casts.its door is unlocked. yet once you step inside, there is no exit.
its walls are unadorned. no one seems to live there.
but there are footprints all around it.
the box in the corner whispers my name sometimes. though it never answers when I respond.
it can't be moved. but I never find it in the same place that I left it.
the box in the corner contains everything. yet it's always empty when I look inside.
in the tumble of choice we wear our vices.
the soft folds tender their gentle promises.
while the deeper creases barter with our ambivalence.the long climb swallows our footsteps.
we search the pockets of our discarded skins.
for any remaining leverage.
tired voices spend the words we've left behind.
everything is temporary, except the losses.
we are constructed from the sublime edges.
of world without a center.
we are turned by the nervous corners.
coins at the backs of our throats.
desperate to purchase what can't be sold.
the silence wears its rigor in delicate scabs and tender folds. the light of a dead star scouring the universe for a grave.
change paces softly in the corridors of our minds. while the past stomps its feet. a spoiled child in a terminal tantrum.
imaginary gods shuffle our lives. decks of cards dealt randomly. we play along. gambling that we'll be chosen to win.
stern in our epiphanies. we don't bother to measure how sharp each corner is.
memory breathes too shallow. but time can hold its breath for decades.
choice spoils too quickly. and our hunger overwhelms us.
we're only artifacts in someone else's grief. dangling threads under their skin.
the more we try to untangle them. the more knots that we create.
perhaps i am. or have always been. an habitual contrarian.
whispering much too loudly into an empty room.
a stilted beggar in weighted robes.
spoiled by time's wicked measurements.
a timid shadow lost in the breadth of the sun.
perhaps we were. or still are. more than we were.
knotted smiles pressed against shattered windows.
stuttering fingers unable to feel anything they touch.
perhaps we might know. or always have.
the shallow breath of temporary euphoria.
a fist made of ashes.
knocking too softly on closed doors.