the road is hungry as we stumble over its gaping jaw.
the hunt is a curious beast.
all dressed up in our empty skins.

time is a feral creature. all growls and claws.
we wander. feathers in our vacuums.
watching everything around us fall.

running because that's what we've always done.
running because where we're going is so impatient. 

the distance is a perfect measure.
the  temerity of beginning to end.
solves us all, eventually. 

the road is uneven as we discover our pace.
pins and needles in the cold extremities of ambition.

we run.
because theres's always something more to chase.  

jack rabbit. jack rabbit. how heavy are your feet.

in the spoiled terrain of predators and thieves.

running too near to stories told with heavy sticks and crumbling stones.

wearing the world too loudly as you race against tomorrow.

the tunnel is long enough that the light is choked.

as you suffer in the stale capitulations of races already lost.

formulas and zeros conspire with gravity.

until every footstep becomes a noose.

the fable sheds its weighted robes.

a carnival of martyrs in temptation's soiled clothes.

run. run as fast as you can. while the world is disappearing at your back.

run. because the end is always in pursuit.

 the truth is a broken smile. no words. only the dilapidated boxes that we never open.

the truth is a series of assassins. who often cripple, but seldom kill.

tender lies sell their medicine. to the desperate and the loyal.

time is the soiled bed where all those monsters sleep. waiting for us to wake them.

time is the stranger in the mirror that wears our face.

delicate skin flirts with the empty math. of what's inside. 

the truth ties its knots in our skin. 

and we spend our whole lives trying to undo them. 

 perhaps i am. or have always been. an habitual contrarian.

whispering much too loudly into an empty room.

a stilted beggar in weighted robes.

spoiled by time's wicked measurements.

a timid shadow lost in the breadth of the sun.

perhaps we were. or still are. more than we were. 

knotted smiles pressed against shattered windows.

stuttering fingers unable to feel anything they touch. 

perhaps we might know. or always have. 

the shallow breath of temporary euphoria. 

a fist made of ashes. 

knocking too softly on closed doors. 

the fold reverses. angles pierce the shadows. cutting their path through the darkness.

wearing choice in seldom dimensions. the hours accumulate like bent ladders. the years all broken matchsticks.

the winter lingers. longer than expected. skin tells its stories. in stabs and sobs. weapons come and go. predators persist. in the sour of dawn. as it steals the warmth from our beds.

it's an ugly journey. from where we are to where we're going. it's the fickle loyalty of flesh. that confounds our melancholy.

the world yawns. bored with our chaos. disgusted with our arrogance.

everything equivocates. idling madly in the wind. everything is stagnant. except the divisions.

sticks and stones end the world. in a frenzy of flesh. bodies bend. moments surrender. we're only alive when there's blood.

there's the bile of touch. rising from deep inside. scorching every breath.

expectation. the quick venom of the bite. we're only as real as our diseases.

there are colors. in every promise. jagged rocks underfoot. painful paths that take us to a paradise that doesn't exist.

the gap despairs. we're so lost we think we're already there. we're so arrogant. we think that it will come to us.

the pause insists. we will resume again. vague courtesies of love that do us no favors. .

we're so nervous. soft in our skins. shallow puddles gathering beneath fallen bridges.

it doesn't hurt anymore. but i know that it should.

life moans and spits. indifference making us strong. but always. again. the cold comes. and we huddle in the warmth of our weakness. brittle hearts embrace the wind. eager to be broken.

anger's tallow blisters and spoils in the heat. the skin of villains and victims is the same. the garden is breached. the apple is bitten. the poison is released. it transforms us. we possess the end of the world in every breath.

the fire swells and ebbs. any escape from the cold is temptation. we may burn. we may be scorched. there is comfort in familiar pain.

distance has its frequent purchase on this flesh. we wander. we travel. in the troubling sober. finding our maps in eager scars and reluctant saviors.  the journey overtakes. and we become an element of the path. worn of random places. tattered crowns without a sovereign. often struck matches without a flame.

the lost whispers softly. ripe with potential. rancid with regret. the road greets her as a child. depeartss her a woman.

the narrower corners gather their secrets. the softer monsters discard their long gowns. it was always formal. we were always dancing. even when there was no music.

but now it's quiet again..

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.

take the distance. take it like stale medicine. bite down. swallow hard. or else be taken by it instead.

it's far. it always is. no matter how close you get. that's the paradox.

the miles bleed. the distance scabs. the wounds  chatter underfoot. stories to tell. I go. Am gone.

such as the war is dependent upon the soldier. to be content to kill.

the moment tightens. a hesitant corkscrew. the rope stiffens. a reluctant noose. the knot unravels. the time machine chokes. on the end of the world.

the map is spent. like currency. a wealth of places on which to wager our panic. we drown in broken crayons and missing erasers.

tasting each intersection. in needles and pins.

gravity in big bites.

in the dusk. in the place between where we are and where we've been. the evolution of want. in spoiling blisters and chafed skin.

perfect distances pretend to see us. imagining patterns in the calamity of touch. defective dolls with microscopic hammers. banging on mountains.

in the morning. before we are divided and spent. there's still something resembling a whole. full of colors and venom and opiates. a confection of skin. more trial than evidence.

an array of decisions. simple slopes. difficult math. solving for naught.

we are linear. little screws shouting into the wind. chased by the shadows we pursue. a needle left in a vein. a bottle on the the edge of the table. all the wars we wage within ourselves.

seldom she confesses. from within the fold of her time machine. the equal division of paradise that is ours to manipulate. the collapse. the simple fluidity as the axiom insinuates. slow moving numbers through the inflated expanse of why. our eventual leap. gravity's inevitable betrayal. a perfect thief.

the purple darkness wears her grief. steep numbers ripe with decay. the angles spent her in pennies and in dimes. a parsimony of skin. a reasonable entropy. the sharp texture of when. like milk and acid. all the hysterical genius of orphans and thieves.

a slit in the echo. a panic of if. she was content. watching the world end one blowjob at a time.

there was a poetry in the math. temperamental numbers to define a lifetime of flesh. there was a violence in the  submission. a passivity so profound that still resonates.

there is no floor. only the empty space below us as we tread. there is no ceiling. only the infinite possibilities of our willful corruption.

she was dancing to the music of destruction. just as pink as she'd ever been. all spindles and fibers. as the patterns gasped into view. the threads knotted like victims. the needles as hungry as they've ever been.

there was a rest in the chaos. frail bones in an empty armor. there was a consent of all her ghsosts. to embrace every collasping bridge.

waiting. the cumulative paradox. there are always tangents. it's the nature of choice. the mediocrity of freedom. 

wearing the moment recklessly. bargaining with the monsters. stealing the story from lazy predators.

the folds collapsing. the shapes defiant. paper skin redolent of missing ink. as the hours continue their quiet bleeding.

the sound of resistance conceding.

you spend so much time at the edge that you begin to think gravity is only a suggestion. that falling isn't real.

you wander so far off course you begin to doubt that there was ever a map. that you've never been anywhere.

i think that the world ends mute. all choked up and self involved. a tedious orgasm that never fully pays off. i think that the world ends with soft words and loud pictures. an arrogant eruption of nothing in a echo of listening.

because the world is like us. we are like it. stones trying to count the thunder. pebbles arguing with the ocean. villains more savior than threat. 

humanity has a way of making every crime into a discovery.

the winter tells those same stories differently than the summer did.

the voice in her head. her truth. chalk wrestling the wind.

her voice. the tedious devils. the inadequate angels. the paradox of flesh coming undone. 

ample fever amongst these eager diseases.

lost amongst the confessions of failing gods.

the poet. the writer. the addict. everything in collision. their ample confluence. depleted needles still deep in the vein.

the sharp spoil of the vaccine. as she maligns the absence of the infection.

the time machine in her flesh as lost as she is.

she's waiting for the rain to stop. she's been waiting such a long time.

she's willing to wait a little while
longer.

the edge is never far. bound by structure and tesselation. content with variables that are seldom solved. the surface is always moving away from us. it's how we know we're getting closer. the shrug of wind. burning paper on the tongue. particles at play. the exhale of the sun. deflating. in the small colors. the dimished geometry of when. the poison in the box. all possibilities within.

the journey is hungry and soft. she's absorbed by the distance. a number in a sequence. consumed by its function.

tempted by gravity she teases the fall. lured by the current. skin all rhetoric and detours. shallow steps. take her down. to the hysterical increments that draw the maps. and the manic integers that determine where they start. where they finish.

she doesn't remember. can't claim the angles nor the math. indifferent numbers paint their crying clowns. on a crowded canvas. she swallows the distance. chokes it down. pebbles and piss. much sweeter than she expected

the variables remain. unconditional. unresolved. a hollow structure. a skeleton of matchsticks. a friction of skin. an impatient host. unwilling to breathe again until she has found the constant.  where the hysteria pauses. surrenders to the current.

stubborn capillaries. insisting a path. in an ocean of blood.

the empty penetrates. bent needles. dry syringes. humble diseases. linger on the end of her lips. all library paste and old magazines. alone becomes us. in rained on parades and faded colors.

it's cold. all yellow nightmares on barren roads. all eyes. no voices. just angry stares.

it's dark. chasing gravity through back doors in the sun. seldom villains and absentee heroes. no path. only the dying echo of the life that came before this one.

it's hot. everything is white. blurred. and chaotic. flesh collides. words fall apart.

it's bright. so loud. all hungry crows fighting over the carrion.

the edge is sharp. it draws blood as I approach it. the edge is elegant and hopeful. ripe with so much falling.

a seldom war. a constant enemy. the stringent paradigms flesh imposes upon its mortgagees. all satire and betrayal in the most stunning of suicides.

the soft corner. the weight of the shadows as the angle's grip tightens. learning. the frequency of the void. the gentle sting of gravity. ripe with a static of falling.

the room. a kiss. a stale surrender. anxious atoms on their violent path to division.

a brief conflict. the moist of her thighs and the sere of her lips. she wanders. lured by freedom. smothered by distance.

gone too far. always. searching less than finding. the anxious roads that let her bleed. dull needles suckling an already empty vein.

the slowly opening bridges that give way to the tall boats. the quiet lies that convince us to let those strangers in. it's just the wind. stirring its cauldron of spells. it's just life commiting to the edge.

maybe the colors stutter. maybe the words stumble. all truth is the trajectory of alone divided by the velocity of skin.

we are all questions drowning in the mechanics of choice.

the surface echoes in a smooth chorus of what has been. the wind laughs at our rigid paths. the road shakes its fist at the obstinate itinerary of touch.

the flow of the atoms. a fierce current. unseen waterfalls. the art of drowning shits out its portrait.

the journey whispers. the distance chokes. the farther i go. the closer i get.

the machine. the moving parts. metal gods and gasoline ghosts. raiding the attic for discarded playthings.

a broken lock. a rotting door. all the windows missing.

the skid. the abrupt end. the tread. the signs. navigating the past. a maze of empty syringes. that still reek of paradise.

the reaction. the pantomime. asphalt and condoms in a sweet slurry. a vortex of skin dares her to remember.

soft scabs listen for the u-turn.

the journey happens. in used matchsticks and dirty bedsheets. smoke and cum. the perfume of love and crisis. stubborn ghosts wasting their pastels drawing flowers and flames.

it's cold. it has to be. the arrogant cancer of touch sweeps us up in its disease. the cure comes in colors. no words. just sweating angles. swallowed up in the inertia of the people we've become.

shedding the numbers. the vague math of broken needles and open windows. petitioning the darkness. in simple equations. ambivalent strokes of submission. quietly poison each moment.

until the sickness becomes a blessing.

the ballad of time. slow and soft. as it stabs. a gentle murder.

not falling.

just letting the gravity win.

the distance. here and there like separate worlds. the apogee. the blink of the sober. as it draws us into itself.

the falling leaves. the roiling seasons. of skin and choice. a withering exchange of flesh. and the outlines it imposes. these unfamiliar skeletons sneak inside us. changing the shape of everything.

empty stretchers. surrounded by sirens. twisting paths. leading nowhere.

her jealous vices. stain the silence. broken pencils stabbing for certainty in a endless chaos of moments. each word an avalanche.

pieces just barely there. faint scratches in the glass. a distant world. familiar, yet lost. a page torn. a gap. in a story unfinished.

her weakness. her pleasure. one destination. two paths.

the subtle coax. the liberal charm. of imagination and want.

the ramp. the gentle angle to get on. the easy speed. of poetry. the innocent math. of touch. the hungry precision of the loneliness as it manipulates our velocity.

there is no map. there is no speed limit. only the peril of getting there.

spent matches still hot from the dead flame. to keep us warm.

seldom and sober. the creases in when. like melting crayons. in the echo of impatient skins. colors seeping. acqueiescent and humble. the fierce of weakness consumes. a cascade of pebbles in a funeral of boulders.

broken glass still clinging to the window's frame. cuts a trecherous path to seeing what's out there.

the cold forms its thin crust. brittle nails struggling to hold together rotting wood.

the winter arrives anemic, yet heavy. a stained blanket. ripe with urine. and dying things.

time stops at some point. or rather it gives up. crumbles like so much stale bread.

the walls wither. the hours wheeze. this cancer they call life consumes all the living.

the brittle boards pretend a floor. the choking flame imagines light. but the darkness knows our deepest secrets.

time whispers in the gnarled folds of broken skin. wounds still alive long after the scars have smothered them. time doesn't heal. it only forgets.

the stir of gravity. like butter. melting into blood. the acquaintance of skin. the perjury of touch. tightening its knots.

the end stumbles. the beginning vomits. the purchase of hours a fierce debate. in rivers of now. in oceans of when. and life. the inadequate vessel with which we attempt to navigate. counting out loud. stroking the numbers. the yellow tendrils of choice. propagating like so many weeds.

there are gaps. a spectacle of flesh. like dead bulbs still humming with the electric. the years swallow and chew. torn lips and broken teeth. determined to consume what meat is left. on the spoiling carcasses of our happiness.

she'll only sometimes listen. when the silence overwhelms. purple nightmares that awaken just under the skin. jagged mazes that always solve to the edge.

bickering angles in the creases of her lips. all the words fall into them. all the world catches in their depths. a sweet honey pot overflowing with piss. the map is altered. rare choices pound their fists.

the sober argument of yesterday scream their dying whispers.

open wounds flaunt their art. the body is the ultimate truth. the end. and the beginning. the sunken clock in the absense of gravity.

soft sketches. faint pencil marks. trace the world in numbers scarred. the peculiar science of broken hearts. sharp blades measure the void. in shallow cuts.

the rain gives chase. as the winter consumes. falling menaces. changes. like hollow bones. continue to resist.

warm meat still against the bone. pulls against the fangs. but eventually is consumed.

tender corners in this stubborn prison. bend, but do not give.