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 edge sleeps softly in its tremulous conceit. touching everything. feeling nothing.

worn by the distance in soiled gowns and muddy fingers.

the monster carries his face in his hands. searching for the place where he might wear it again.

in deep forests where little girls tote their heavy baskets.

his heart full of broken zippers. his voice distorted by decrepit fangs.

the distance simmers in his breath. all too eager to scald him.

the edge counts backward. from beginning to end. a curious dare.

skin places its bets. all melted candy and empty wrappers.

the monster discards his claws. and waits. for the world to change. 

unaware that it already has. 

places she confessed had always been her weakness.

the where too aggressive. the when too sharp.

and the why always scribbling with broken pencils. 

time she lamented always impressed her.

their lengthy arguments much more thrilling than their outcomes. 

and all the ugly intersections where we almost met. selling coincidence and calling it fate. 

life's stubborn hourglass swallowing the last of her dwindling sand. 

everything is a fraction. or so she thought. 

as she dared the end to prove her wrong. 

feeble gods in the fist of change. promising entry to heaven through hell's unlatched gate. 

love she had always assumed was a prefection equation. a confession  written in skin. 

meant to convict her of a crime that she'd never committed. 

her box was empty. or so she thought. since she couldn't see what it contained. 

the  distance yawned.
as we collected its rope. 

the silence tied its knots.
and we scoffed at the noose. 

the edge knew us too well.
in the foul way that only desperation does. 

there were monsters under our bed.
more scared of us than we were of them. 

the truth licked its lips.
while we cut out its tongue.

we were poison to each other.
but instead of killing us,
it only made us immune. 

time smothered us in new flesh,  
but underneath,
those old wounds still persist.

gravity forgets us. once we've fallen too far.

a series of small cuts in time's wizened wrist.

serve as our map. as we navigate this expiring flesh.

we push closer to the center.

fragile monsters slouching on their crumbling horns.

choke on the ugly choices that have sharpened our claws.

the distance stumbles. a slender rope suspending a weighted bridge.

we run. our feet made of dust and clay. toward what we know not.

except away from where we've been.

turning on the fickle parable of touch.

fully committed to love's sublime abattoir.

solvent numbers spend our voices. the surreptitious equations of seldom ghosts.

a single crease. a tiny wrinkle. and time is in pieces.

the glorious puzzle of skin. solving us from end to beginning.

grief carves its maps in our flesh. leading us deeper into infectiious strangers.

we sway with the heavy pendulum of touch. striking hard against the bitter toll of when.

i'm not yours. i never was. the dead don't belong to anyone.

you're not mine. you never were.

love is always borrowed.

we can never own it. 

slivers of when scrape the veins.
in severed arms and borrowed skins.

we chew on the sky.
hungry for an adversary.

our plastic eyes
unable to see the obvious.

we pause the end.
and tuck it away in our pockets.

full of dirty coins
desperate to be spent.

we polish the mirrors.
betrayed by their reflections.

we plead guilty.
though we know not what our crime is.

the numbers ripen. the colors sour.
and we begin again.

convinced by curious atoms.
that the decay is magnificent.

shattered candies cutting
sweetly at love's moist lips.

the hours tie their knots.
as the truth hardens.

we chase the remainders
as the math peels away our skin.

love is just a fraction.
the common denominator is us.

gravity forgets us. once we've fallen too far.
a series of small cuts in time's wizened wrist.

serve as our map. as we navigate this expiring flesh.

we push closer to the center.
fragile monsters slouching on their crumbling horns.

choke on the ugly choices that have stranded them.

the distance pauses.
a slender rope suspending a weighted bridge.

we run. our feet made of dust and clay.

toward what we know not.
except away from where we are.

turning on the fickle parable of touch.
dutifully committed to love's brutal abattoir.

sometimes we are simple. others we are complex.

easily manipulated by the various creases in our skin.

we chew on the soiled pillows that cover our unmade beds.

twisting on the cusp of love's diluted poisons.

feral opportunists on epiphany's shrinking stage.

unaware that time is a promise that can't be kept.

i could almost say you loved me. but that simply can't be true.

can a thief love what he's stolen. can a predator love what he's killed.

sometimes the math lies to us. and pretends that there's something left.

slouching utopias scour our grief.
for the tenuous poisons that 
that once made us whole.

we balk at the simple mechanisms
that grunt out our lives.
while crippled time machines throb in our throats.

stubborn actors in masks we can't remove.
no more subtle grins to pretend we can be saved.

missing words fret their price.
as we auction off the remains of our skin.
every touch more fragile than the last.

hollow stages quiver beneath
the weight of our discontent.

bitten apples turn sour
waiting for us to taste
how sweet they once were. 

forgotten strangers suckle at the scars on our wrists.

the crumbling skeletons of rancid memories.

time is a mysterious drug. growing more powerful the less that we have of it.

a dull blade that scrapes our skin despite our petulant defiance.

we were alive once. in the thimble of its hysteria. wild prey kicking at the hunt.

voices crushed under their words. puppets strangled in their strings.

feral beasts. destroyed by the simple arithmetic of touch.

 

the silence wears its rigor in delicate scabs and tender folds. the light of a dead star scouring the universe for a grave. 

change paces softly in the corridors of our minds. while the past stomps its feet. a spoiled child in a terminal tantrum. 

imaginary gods shuffle our lives. decks of cards dealt randomly. we play along. gambling that we'll be chosen to win. 

stern in our epiphanies. we don't bother to measure how sharp each corner is. 

memory breathes too shallow. but time can hold its breath for decades. 

choice spoils too quickly. and our hunger overwhelms us. 

we're only artifacts in someone else's grief. dangling threads under their skin. 

the more we try to untangle them. the more knots that we create. 

we navigate this treacherous skin.

every new touch cutting deeper than the last.

prisoners ascending time's crumbling walls.

our flesh engaged in an eternal war.

every word a surrender. every glance a suicide.

blood makes its promises. tears tender their confessions.

as the years betray us, the distance shrugs.

our weapons grow heavy. our armor turns to dust.
 

but even long after these bodies have surrendered,

we still keep those blades sharp. 

frozen mirrors turn our own faces into strangers.

we tear at the shadows. convinced we can save the dead.

quietly the years consume us. until only skeletons remain.

we search for new skins. cold and vulnerable.

we sneak inside the closest one that fits.

just a quick taste. and then.

we'll move on to the next.


quietly we teach the dark our names.

open graves become familiar beds.

we chew on the grief. nourished by our shame.

we bite down on the sinew. all that's left of our catastrophe.

just a little taste. and then.

a lifetime of wondering

if we'll ever know that feeling again. 


Filed under: December 2024  Sad Poetry

alcoholicpoet.com

A little bit of sad poetry about the combustion of choices. 


she idles. treading in the throat of time. waiting to drown. 

she listens. to the currents as they devour the islands that still remain. 

the moment swallows hard. and she wonders will it choke on her. 

but the truth is, she knows she's too small. 

their choices explode. a cacophony of touch. 

she wonders. whether the monster under her bed will find its way between her sheets. 

names are for the privileged. choices are for the fortunate. 

and she is neither of those things. 

she measures the distance between them.

 by the fire under her skin.


Filed under: Sad Poems December 2024

an original poem by alcoholicpoet.com

 i knew the lie even before it revealed its name. 

a suitcase of words. as we traveled between dormant destinations. 

we danced for hours. to the rhythm of the storm as it tried on our various faces. 

the distance copulating with all the missing variables. 

our choices arguing with the thieves under our skin. 

the tender math of reluctant strangers. struggling to reconcile a growing debt. 

love like radiation. poisoning us from within. 

an equation of emotions. weaker still against the sharp angles of consent. 

i asked him why. as if i thought there could be an answer. 

i stumbled through how. eyes closed. all remaining skin discarded. 

we were drenched in a thunderstorm of choices. 

i confessed i had left the door unlocked. 

still  it remains unopened. 

 stolen names fail the surge. we wear the storm. travelers on candy bridges. 

suffocating in our quiet epiphanies. 

skin like knives. 

screaming because our words are missing. 

the chaos flaunts its colors. an explosion of choices. 

the pieces quiver. caught in gravity's noose. 

the obvious monsters polish their horns. 

touch is a strict accountant. calculating every cent. 

as the price of devotion steadily increases.  

he gathers his stones.

all his imaginary bridges heavier still. 

time scrapes the edges.

the math undoes his calculations. 

we fidget with the blade.

but never let it taste our skin. 

adrift in the pageantry of dogma.

servants to slender utopias. 

he punctures the ceiling.

in a room without walls. 

the light travels much too far to reach him. 

the slit changes the experiment.

observation is everything. 

the ceiling stiffens. the floor decays. we pull on the needles in our flesh. our voices full of paperclips.

these bodies simmer. mediocre gods caught in the agony of someone else's heaven. 

sick with too many doors we cannot lock. 

we're free. that's all we really are. loose change. falling through the holes in someone else's pockets. 

empty rooms vexed by all their dirty windows. 

time is a scale. it weighs our choices. 

we're alive. that's all we can ever be. 

orphans. pennies at the bottom of a well.

all our wishes spent. 

turned by the corner. worn by the war. in splinters of skin that fester in the creases of our want. too small to see. too big to ignore.

moments are all she knows. the hum of yellow in a sea of red.

the bite of time in the pinch of the wind. as the weather solves us. like little puzzles with far too many pieces.

the end's limp parade marches forward. heavy with the specter of consent. paling against the math of when. dragging its empty baskets. hauling its weighted nothings. pressing the buttons on lingering scars.

the cold's sour candy still sticky on summer's lips. as the sun peddles its tired stories. life stumbles. over the stones we call love. bruised and shaking. in a fury of touch. as loud as it is deaf.