Evolution's Debts

 the thimble quivers. needles robbed of blood. we wear our guillotines in paper blades. thieves in tarnished scowls. telling stories in torn napkins and unzipped corsets. 

we measure the darkness by the light that we can still recall. fortified by our blindness. 

selling our skins to the skeletons we encounter along the way.   

the clock winces. bruised by the weight of our choices. 

the ghosts discard their sheets. as empty as we are. 

we tumble through the void. the architects of our own catastrophe. 

impatient martyrs. 

the noose slouches.  on the steps of elysium.

only to discover that the door is locked.