time came late to warn us that we were lost. taut in its sacrifice. an ambivalent tyrant. 

we wore the parade as if the path was our own. shallow graves dug for missing corpses. 

the voices listened. thirsty cobwebs in the corners of her words. 

touch sways. a weighted pendulum. counting everything. and nothing. 

the wolves swallow the scent. of heavy baskets. on their way through the forest. 

distance chews on our momentum. in bits of salt and bone. the corruption of consent. 

the journey is a needle looking for its thread. 

the truth is a tangled rope. 

the answer is in the knots. 

bridges collapse. in callous confessions. 

too often time decides who we are..

in a tumbling grin. 

in a jagged touch. 

the edge easily grabs us. and holds us over the abyss. 

roads lengthen. the distance yawns at our exhaustion. 

rooms shrink. until their walls become our skin. 

the math betrays. counting only what is lost. 

voices hum. curious intersections. where all our maps are useless. 

bridges burn. earnest protagonists with too many debts. 

time listens. a lazy antagonist. 

as our bridges disintegrate beneath our footsteps.

 anxious numbers wear the void.

beware unexpected equations.

all absent deities and indifferent saviors.


solitude discards its skin.

beware earnest skeletons.

all chewed meat and rotting faces.


impatient horizons take us nowhere.

beware mischievous corners.

that obscure the path.


near or far.

the distance back home

is always the same.

corners cut. hills break. the rabbit runs. the tortoise gives chase.

the distance blinks and suddenly we're somewhere else.

time is a merchant. with nothing left to sell us.

all the words are loud, but meaningless.

the bottle tips. everything spills out. but we don't care. because the empty fits so well.

the distance chokes on itself. a cracked hourglass. all the sand spilling out.

time is a magician and we are the trick.

the wolves have their fangs. the sheep have their fences.

victims ask for permission. thieves ask for forgiveness.

 trace the numbers. scrape the bridge. negotiate the defiant exceptions.

there's a total. an accumulation. that is seldom counted.

stories told in bent voices and broken skin. 

the caustic arithmetic of trust. bleeding its equations all over our bruised knees. 

time is a patient dictator. a lazy machine. gnawing on its own gears.

no waiting, she huffs. everything is right now. or has already happened.

the road bites down. as we slouch toward the horizon. choking on our defiance.

the distance tastes the zippers we've let come undone.

we're exposed.

only to realize. we always were.

 the edges struck each other. no force. just interference. a tunnel through the lingering chaos.

her fingers stumbled over his skin. blunt needles searching for some way to deliver their message.

she didn't know whether it was poison or medicine.


time assembled its machines. a long series of suicides. calibrated just so. each one punctuated by a resurrection.

the numbers danced. in their vacant cloaks. measuring all the pieces she had broken. she listened to the sounds. as it kept counting backward from nothing.

she didn't know whether she was lost or had been found.


the shapes were fluid. the colors whispered in soft words. the distance shrugged off its grin. an empty noose swaying in the wind.

she didn't know whether it was the beginning or the end.

the angle whispers. a cacophony of waiting. 
distorted by the devout confidence of gravity. 
and all the sharp corners where truth lies in wait.

tangled fingers tugging on broken zippers. 
undeterred by what's inside.

the process finds her abruptly. 
a sudden detour in a path that seems clear. 

all the colors scatter. 
until only the empty outlines remain.

a series of fragile monsters. 
negotiating with stale nooses. 
and grinning corpses.

the edge consents. 
a delicate promise of surrender. 
the sweet obedience of shame. 

we are artifacts. 
crumbs in the corners 
of the mouth of change. 

 we waited. lost in the conjugation of skin. the language of choice arrogant with complexity.

all those sharp corners cut the same as the dull ones. it was only the shape of the scars that varied.

the electrons danced in their orbits. chasing the absent observers that had created their paradox.

time she knew always kept its pencils sharp. even when there were no more pictures to draw.

the distance tied its knots too tightly.

she was much too patient. waiting for the string to break.

the photons traveled through the slit. wondering whether someone had seen.

hope is an unreliable narrator. of obvious stories.

she counted the edges. determined to measure the uncertainty.

time polished its remaining coins.

but the well had run out of wishes. 

 shallow creases taste our skin. casual predators.

stalking voids we never knew were there.

the smell of time is both sweet and sour.

old clothes caked with blood and expectation.

change holds its breath.

a frail ladder caught between trust and shame.

choice is a curious artifact.

left behind by false prophets.

tripping over evolution's narrow geometry.

seduced by biology's furious math.

we wander within love's invisible walls.

stabbing at the narrative with broken pencils.

never understanding why we are lost.

ugly as they sometimes are. the words have their protocols. 

salient angles tell their stories. the last drop of water in a leaking bucket. 

we wander through these tornadoes. screaming at the wind.

ripe infections in wounds that refuse to heal.

powerless deities in a paradise of our own invention.

the waiting convinces us. that there's something more.

the rain drenches us and we blame the sun.


the fairy tale stalls. all scalene triangles and unsolved equations.


we're small enough to see the distance. too big to understand what it means.

the universe tucks us into its pocket.

all voided transactions and loose change.

no refunds. 

tenured atoms split their arbiters. 
the heavy drape of faltering kings.

the future insists. 
more friction than grease.

the weight of when tenders its applause, 
in hollow pragmatists.

gravity discards its scales. 
we all fall at the same speed.

we fumble with the fragments of our skin. 
fractured patterns in a stolen mirror. 

the remnants of our courage
too exposed to solve its puzzle.

the darkness sputters.
nearly frail enough to trust.

old time machines sharpen their claws. .
hungry for our corpses. 

 severed arteries spill their blood into our hands.

the taste of swollen gods still fresh in our throats.

their eyes like crushed pennies.

their smiles sharper than the truth.

we're always too young, until we're too old.


the hours stumble.

heavy with sinking atoms.

desperate to explode.


time gathers its weapons.

as we wander through

our lingering wars. 


our skin growing louder. 

as every touch becomes chaos.

let the antonym crack against the stutter of our shame. 

the reluctant protagonist in a story full of desolate rooms.

watch the sky collapse. all broken songs and foul skins. 

all the vile little feasts that persuade our hunger to persist. 

the distance chokes on our feeble epiphanies. 

reminding us that time is more disease than cure. 

wear the choices. in flowing gowns.

stiffened by their shrinking truths. 

taste the pause. as grief tugs on our zippers. 

quiet. resolute. 

everything inside spilling out. 

the names they call us by eventually fade. 
locked doors to empty rooms.

choices break like corners. 
sharpest as we get too close.

the years wander through us.
a pantomime of strangers in familiar faces.

the colors they use to change us tend to dull. 
little boxes with too much nothing inside. 

the distance devours our progress. 
a long series of small suicides. 

we count out loud. each piece. every particle. 
of our shattered puzzle.

meticulously building a world from what remains.

time swallows us slowly. sweet candy skeletons laced with putrid marrow.

though hunger pays it no mind.

change hunts gradually. sharp claws scratch the surface. 

while underneath the tender meat remains. 

waiting turns sour. closed eyes forget how to see. 

the truth bangs its hammer. and all the nails slither into place.

there are no lies. only spoiled memories.

we wander. feasting on the distance. as lost threads its needle.

we search the edges.. toting baskets heavy with choices.

foolishly bargaining with the wolf. 

as if we're not already caught in his teeth.

the lines resolve to something narrower. 
that's what truth is. 

colors without names. 
and lips that never move 
as our words trample them.

the distance solves for when. 
a curious magician 
searching for his rabbit. 

the corner is loud
as we scrape the edge. 

the void is silent
as it sticks out its tongue. 

the bridge trembles
under the weight of our expectations. 

time she said, is better measured in whispers. 
as perspective stumbles over our empty skins.

 all the little numbers add up.

gravity clenches its fist.

as we run along the edge. daring it to trip us.

denominators in smeared lipstick. flirting with arrogant decimals.

we're sure. because what else can we be. as we pretend to know what we never can. 

we're thin. and taut. slender strings desperate to retain all that is moving away from us. 

we're atmosphere. and ozone. an inferno encapsulating the world. as if we can contain it. 

apostles of inertia. swinging on broken pendulums. counting zeroes. 

all the little lies. as the fractions bite down. 

the math is simple. 

as gravity exhales. 

everything depends 

on what is left. 

 broken pencils still draw their pictures. split atoms accelerate their division. 

little droplets of why on the curtain of our skin. leave their stains. 

sharp collars around the throat of time. cut into fickle flesh. 

a deep wound. infected with all the things we almost had. 

change wears her sharply. with a slippery grin. that crumbles when no one is looking. 

she writes her name in the darkness. stroking the phantoms as they assemble their doorways. 

lazy machines in the calamity of choice. suffocate on the velocity of our panic. 

shallow dresses on tiny skeletons. search for the buttons hidden in the folds. 

telling their stories in discarded flesh. 

a catastrophe of touch. 

that savors every bruise.

we search for the difference between the name we've chosen and the ones that have chosen us.

our journey measured equally in shallow puddles and torrential downpours.

the ripe fruit quickly becomes treason when left unpicked. this is the pendulum that marks our lives.

the poison remains sealed inside the box. a void until someone dares to look inside.

time bites its lip. selling its betrayal for a much higher profit than its convictions.

the distance chokes on itself. as she stumbles past its consent.

its incredulous cure still much too weak.

as her sickness cinches its knots. 

we search for the difference between where we are and where we've been. 

piglets in their straw houses. 

unaware of the wolf within. 

 the end approached slowly. both a beggar and a thief.

she counted out loud. chasing every decimal. as division lit its fuses.

change grinned as it untangled its chains. flaunting its empty cages.

he said there was time. that it was stalwart. even as everything else collapsed.

the end held its breath. as the truth slithered under her skin.

selling the tilted fractions of ravenous strangers. a curious commodity of lingering debts.

a caution of cracked buoys. adrift in the shallows of a deeper ocean.

time cinched its remaining threads. an efficient assassin. undeterred by slippery tongues.

through it all. she continued to keep count.

long after the math had given up.