wear the creases. turn the folds.
negotiate the ugly lineage of plastic gods. 

gamble the caution. of temporary promises. 

spoil the confessions of sober skin. 

the lines that draw us. are more pencil than ink. 

ride the machine. tease the gears. 
peel the flesh from gravity's bones. 

we measure time in how little we have left. 

we define distance by how far we've come. 

we're loud. in the anatomy of our fairy tales. 

stubbornly accruing our breadcrumbs. 

but the woods are dark.

and all of our scales are defective. 

sour spindles on memory's decrepit time machine. leave us counting the decimals in our fists.

the world doesn't seem so small when you're standing on its edge. All fireflies and screwdrivers. As the light bulbs choke. on the remains of our hunger. 

we run. driven by instinct and biology. lonely pistons churning inside a vast machine. going places. always going places we've already been. devouring the miles as they feast on our flesh. 

the hours swim. drowning in the minutes. the road chokes on our progress.hunting for an intersection. or any kind of choice.

the distance is loud. the map is deaf. as the end inserts its syringe. and we welcome the poison.

tell me how we were once that young. so small that everything we touched was so much bigger than us. tell me the truths that gave us courage. tell me the lies that let us believe them.

in the grim of conceit. we spent those moments. the sober of flesh not withstanding. as each storm arrived with a fresh flood.

in the shadow of the bridges. the path broke. fell away from the traffic. the small needles. the straining threads. of a hesitant summer. and the body's reluctant consent.

it's the steep slope that we climb. it's the shallow puddle that drowns us. it's the choice that tempts us. the decision that defines.

a long war of empty consequence. wears her skeleton like an ill fitting gown. the hours dance. ugly with the promise of when.

choices. like daggers. pierce her heart. the dead have their whispers. the living have their scars.

the slope took us. the vex of momentum antagonizing gravity. calm and indifferent. as acceleration wove its arrogance into the dense burlap of our psyche.

small magicians in big top hats. shaking their dead rabbits.

the future festers within. poisoning us with a virus of tomorrows.

the intersection approaches. loud and feral. with places and people. and ample claws.

the places fetch us. rudimentary strangers drowning in proximity's allure. seldom found. nor wanting to be. now devoured by shadows and swallowed in sun. awakened by the fire that consumes us.

it was too soon. it was too late. there's little difference

the corner trembles. much too alive. much too real. a lightning bolt in a blizzard. that is when. only one  moment. then it's gone forever.

tambourine glances penetrate the depths. seldom distances echo in memory's fluctuating pinch. the lens consumes. vision whispers. as ghosts peddle their wares in the mind's soiled corners and the body's dusty crevices.

storms humble and beguile. eager students of the weather. its fickle loyalties. its abundant indifference.

we ran when we shoul've walked. the door was still locked. we waited when we should've pressed. everyone had already gone.

the clouds tremble. the miles confess. how small we are. how vast the world is.

i try to take the corner, but am taken by it instead.

we weren't there. not yet. numb to the faltering credibility of touch.

the path that led us there simultaneously led away. it's a simple paradox that complicates everything.

i wasn't prepared to try. it felt enough just to let it happen. a long string taut on the kite. a thin bargain struck with the wind.

summer swept to winter. in the shallow cuts that time inspires. we weren't there. nor were we any closer. yet we had travelled so far.

the end emerged. softened by the blindness of perspective. she knew how sharp the corners. but not where next they might cut.

she understood the math. the biology of numbers. the swell of distance as it erupts.

it was the getting there that never made sense.

deep lines carve the moment. hollow flesh searching for bones.

our words are a curtain. every touch a grave.

it's grey she said. the world is colorless. a scrape of outlines that twist and turn. wearing every breath like a broken blade.

 i'm not there. i never was.

 the empty cautions. the unraveling skins. of obstinate sheep and clever wolves.

 i lived briefly. now i'm dead again.

 it simmers. soft like ripe fruit. easily bruised. it calls my name. pretending to know who i am.

 it's an unfortunate time machine. that's always counting. it's an easy bandage to remove. pretending we've healed.

 time is a vast ocean. and all my choices are stones.

i'd rather drown holding on than survive letting go.

it fades. the illusion spent. coins at the bottom of an empty well.

i love. as if i am loved. though i'm less than certain. it twists and pierces. until i am full of holes.

i love because that is what i feel. disregarding the sirens in my head.

i run. the kite string burning my wrist. still holding on. as the wind takes over.

it stutters. it limps. weak enough to pity. strong enough to resent.

i loved as i always have. wanting everything. expecting nothing.

i recover. slouching toward bethlehem in my lingering surrender.

what can i offer. what can i give. nothing that hasn't always been yours.

the end arrives both eager and reluctant. a fistful of gravity between this life and the next. the bridges devour the sky. the distance comes and goes. shallow footprints in time's moist cement.

i told her that she didn't know. she never would. a callous truth that irreversibly divided us.

the road bit down hard. tried to swallow us, but choked instead.

i told her that it was over. had never begun. a choice that left us both brutally alone.

the tense came into play like so much skin. the thinnest paper. the narrowest of edges. the past collecting its beautiful orphans and fits of sober.

i told her that i didn't know. that i'd never even tried to.

gravity came in violent waves. a relentless downhill. devouring any remnants of how close we'd been.

the grief overtook. spending us like broken glass. in small stumbles and lingering bruises. eventually we surrendered to the force of the paradox and became the most intimate of strangers.

some words spent her. voices in the well. a panic of pleasure.quietly brewing in feverish skin. the murmuring curtains. the eager conceits. of broken lovers and dysfunctional heroes.

an hysteria of when. bleeding markers and blunt crayons count the pages. choking clocks and grinning echoes. wear her madness. in knotted ropes and heavy buckets. dense with rain.

the patient hammer. the methodical nail. as the corner breathes to speak.

simple soldiers in complicated wars. the angle moves to reach her. and the depth is lost.

the kingdom is manifest. the margins are cut. eager cannibals in a contest of scars.

he lied. he said i was all. the subtle larceny of love. all dynamite and cupcakes in the relentless thunder of time.

we played. tossing our demons and our angels. the simple games of absent lovers. the spoils of distance not withstanding.

the physics of how. in thin needles and viscous poisons.

the wolf comes and goes. a harvest of skin. a frenzy of when.

the bridges try to break us. hope in simple villains.

we pretend we can change. but the distance is our undoing.

it's cold here inside my skin.

dim parables exploit the flesh. obvious crises foul the buttons.

these arrogant machines. more superstition than science. these heavy bones. like a pendulum of trust.

all this empty space. its silence echoing. bald fractions devour the math of lovers and friends. the decimal confesses. the portions deflate.

the future came and went. while we were busy with the script.

ice cubes in the glass. melting situations. paper protagnists. in the wet stories of men and women. the slope of touch. like spoiled medicines. the promise of disease as it shapes us.

all blunt needles and frayed threads. the preposterous plague of hope. as it stumbles. spreading its infection.

time's lingering frostbite. the bitter certainty in the cyclical void. quiet songs make their choices from among seldom hellos.  it's the horizon she says. with its scowling eyes. that makes me feel so small and everything seem so far away.

it's all seeds. they sprout. they grow. they die. we gather. we forget. we are taken, spent and used. a gorgeous suicide.

she doesn't know. never has. the hours come. like bits of glass digging into her thoughts. there's no blood. just waiting. for the ache to breathe.

it's all chemicals. we crave. we love. we are broken. a captivating cycle of destruction.

the angle is obtuse. the path is brief. there is very little story. and far too much tragedy.

the reaction is in the meeting. the suffering is in the chemistry.

she looks for something to hold. the atoms or the molecule. but everything is huge.

she waits for someone to know.

she's still waiting.