when gravity whispers, everything listens.

the distance smirks. laughing at all the jokes we never told. 


rabbits run through darkness. undeterred by the many nooses.

every footstep wails, a deepening hunger. 


the fox chews on the wind. the scent a jagged razor.

the unknown is, who is the hunted.


when the numbers fail, we examine the skin.

for purchase on these slopes.

gnawing on the friction that almost kept us from falling.


the truth arrives in broken buttons and knotted threads. 

puzzles better left unsolved.

 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.

 how quietly we withered. soft bones embracing the sun. no words. just voices too old to recognize.

prices paid without exception. empty songs. that linger. the poison of absent choices.

time keeps count. the ubiquitous measure of decay. a rotting art. life in curious tangles. and hungry knots.

light decides. taken from. and given away. always waiting to be seen. 

the humble perseverance of the angle telling its desperate lies. and the ugly flesh that convinces us to believe them.

the atoms have their weight. and gravity has its contextual velocity. like the hum of words as they break our hearts. or the strike of our feet as we chase the pavement.

either way. we're always falling.

 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. 

i argued with the miles. certain the distance could measure me. 

time's sharp corners a defective scale. 

i sold my skin. convinced that its weight was smothering me. 

sorrow's distorted glass an empty stage. 

voices came and went. what remained was how i let him see. 

a pause much too similar to surrender. 

i spent the words with a curious consent. 

a bridge of conceit. a promise never meant to be kept. 

i solved the puzzle of a broken man

with a single piece. 

the machine falters. intense, yet impotent. 

defined by manic fairy tales.

the promise clenches. biting down on its own tongue. 

a parody of monsters searching for change in torn pockets.

the machine is both the bargain and the culprit.

the measure of swollen contrition. 

the dangling string on the runaway kite. 

the machine whispers. 

quietly insisting its power. 

the villain is obvious. the crime is precise.

dolls with their limbs scattered.  

their missing faces forgotten. 

the machine is the spark. choice is the kindling.

the fire is small. until it isn't.

the betrayal is always within. waiting to be discovered. 

cordial thieves gnaw on the bones.

the poison fluctuates between assassin and salvation. 

the curious arithmetic of exposed flesh. 

gravity idles. tender threads negotiating with deepening wounds.  

time consents. its voice simmering just below a boil. 

the dubious contract between want and circumstance. 

the distance sharpens its claws. just hungry enough to taste our skin.

faceless dolls scratching at shattered mirrors. 

places find us bound to choices long expired. 

feathers in a vacuum swaying on broken pendulums.

turn and persuade the void. loud corners arguing with silent walls. 

confessions in stolen smiles. touch's mercurial time machine.

the sour of absent folds. fading creases. missing poisons.

differential atoms. execute the changes. 

as if we are only a scale. measuring the weight of strangers.

stop and count the footsteps. the angles change. the depth is constant.

the light stumbles through our grief. suffocated by the clarity of distance. 

gravity yawns. unimpressed by our calculations.

pause and caress the edge. 

it's been waiting so patiently.

 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.

the kitten chews her tail. the corpuscle takes a breath. 

time pauses. slick with intent. 

we feed ourselves to the nearest oblivion. 

arbiters of nothing. conspirators of conscience.

the rabbit discards his ears. the tendon closes its eyes. 

momentum chews its hook. 

grim with the evidence. we stumble into gravity. 

disobedient monarchs. in crowns of lead. 

chained to the miles. spent by the distance.

calculating choices. as everything combusts.

dutiful is the orphan. loyal is the thief. 

fickle is the decimal as it wanders through our skin.

the whims of broken numbers elegantly poisoning us. 

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. 

 when the distance first tasted us, we surrendered.

scrambled stitches in time. more arithmetic than flesh.

worn by circumstance. gentle levers against our shame.

selling ourselves in the narratives of broken strangers.


the numbers assemble their weighted bridges.

seldom predators wag their tongues.

the distance ripens

and we are stranded.


the pieces we collect

too heavy to carry.


gravity grins.

as we sink into our footprints.


time licks its wounds 

while we tear out the stitches. 

 times plays its usual songs. pulling on all the dusty curtains we've left closed for too long.

the sharper exits settle their mileage. with broken zippers and empty pockets. 

she wears her name in tumbling confessions. listening for colors in the grey. 

skin swells with friction. all the absent words that have betrayed us. shed their scabs. 

weakening monsters rattle our beds. polishing their conditional cages. 

time spends itself on fractions of flesh. chewing on lingering debts. 

and we keep counting. 

long after there's nothing left. 

resolute is the pantomime. open skin sells itself in loose crumbs.

the humble touch of impotent choices. all missing keys and broken locks.

absolute is the choke of the bridge. as it crosses through us.

the numbers panic. the equation sighs. knowing we're solving for loss.

stern are the doorways as we search for a way inside. 

the walls stumble over the windows. the rooms swell with our absence.

places we know that have forgotten us.

it's only time's faulty medicine. making us weak.

it's only the monsters under our bed.

still growling.

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. 

 silver scabs and open claws. tunnels in time wear their stories like melting ice.

the taste of shame perpetuates the cost. we negotiate the debt with trembling skin.

the end of the world arrives. a beautiful confession full of ugly autumns.

time simmers. a corner too far from where we began. 

dense with splintered fairy tales and spoiled picnic baskets.

the light wears our faces in tepid confessions. the lure of words we almost said.

we tease the axis. as it tilts against the storm. 

bargaining with the wind for one more moment upon its graces. 

gravity swells. 

tumbling through us. 

a peculiar avalanche.

obliterating only what was already missing. 

close enough it was. or had been. the difference negligible.

the world all fever and shivers. like neglected children.

the atoms slipped outside their equilibrium. heavy oars in a boat without an anchor.

told were the tales. spent was the skin. frail like paper. narrow like memory.


we gathered. our cotton eyes. and sunken fists. vehemently arguing with the math.

insisting upon the truth. even as it betrayed our every edge.

until only the textures remained. cold accusations. and sealed boxes.

heavy with both the living and the dead.


the light shone in too many places. 

daring us to see. 

how dark it is.

 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.