Perpendicular

Barefoot despots. Tilling parasites. The controversy. In thinning subjugation's. Distilling life from foul corpses. The art of hatred. Moving the idle. Numbing the rest of us.

She counts backward from one billion. Each digit a stone. Breaking the surface tension. On too still waters. Frozen stairs. Betray the cellars without windows. Everything is down there. Nothing is.

Finding solace in the pause rather than the ritual. She counts. The missing doors. The empty attics. The wolves and the children. Coaxed by the fairy tale. Left to presume. Ambivalent footprints. On the way to when.

The math in hysterics. The ghosts in feeble patterns. Soft wood. And little houses. We wear under our skin. Loose stitches. Cull the blankets from soiled beds. She counts backward. From one billion. She pretends she is close. To one.

She is.

Closer than she knows.