orphans scratch out the tenuous diaries of circumstance and skin. 

no silver fists to prove our mettle. nor tattered buckets in which to collect our missing pieces. 

we continue to chase the world. even as its claws shred our flesh. stiffened by corners that only get sharper. 

paupers of why in an aristocracy of when. 

their faces all gone. their lies long since spent. 

the premise is corrupt.  

the end yawns and we are discarded. 

trembling blades in a forgotten war. 

we say we don't remember. 

as time slits its wrists and bleeds all over us.

time has simple rules. but touch is more complicated. a long hallway dense with doors we must unlock. 

we spin on gravity's slender strings. a catastrophe of atoms barely connected by the diminishing forces of circumstance. 

skin has obvious parameters. but want possesses infinite variables. 

we dance on the decaying inertia of arrogant choices. a cascade of expectation erupting. 

every window shattered. every room corrupted. 

we push the edge away. tumbling embers negotiate the abyss. 

the flame is paused. 

we slither into the dicarded skins. and remind the imposters. 

that we were alive once.

if only for an instant. 

the box in the corner has my name on it. but it isn't mine.

the room that it sits in is otherwise empty. except for the shadows that it casts.

its door is unlocked. yet once you step inside, there is no exit.

its walls are unadorned. no one seems to live there.

but there are footprints all around it.

the box in the corner whispers my name sometimes. though it never answers when I respond.

it can't be moved. but I never find it in the same place that I left it.

the box in the corner contains everything. yet it's always empty when I look inside.

 

an original post by alcoholocpoet.com

inside the monster i saw the empty gowns. the discarded limbs and severed faces that once feigned to be human. 

i stumbled over the obvious arithmetic countless times. until the numbers eventually found their equilibrium. 

i let the edge tell its stories. the spoiled confessions of arrogant liars. 

i didn't have to fall, but i wanted to. 

gravity bit its tongue. as the world tumbled out of focus. 

time sharpened its claws. 

we sat inside the machine as it choked on our corpses. 

strangers with familiar faces. 

we tugged on our ugliest zippers and  smirked as our insides spilled out. 

Filed under: August 2024 Poetry
 

alcoholicpoet.com

tell me again about the end of the world. 

the stiffening numbers that keep count of our crimes. and the unfortunate math that feigns to absolve. 

time taps its fingers on the glass. 

a curious cannibal. a fickle companion. 

we solve the world in the simple arithmetic of love and hate. 

while the truth still nurses much more complex equations. 

betrayal crawls out of its skin. 

a confident ally. a ruthless adversary. 

 permanent chasms form under the bridges between our touch. savage is the telemetry that reconciles  yesterday and tomorrow. 

flesh accumulates. all bricks and blood. an ugly feast for time's vicious equations. 

we say we know. because we think that we do. 

ashes on the lips of the wind. desperate to be words. callous are the calculations that measure our choices. 

gods come and go. the truth remains. 

we knock on the doors. no one answers. we call their names. they don't respond. 

the world yawns. uninterested in our shame. 

we tug on life's zippers. stunned to reveal the hidden skeletons. 

the void bites its tongue. our voices  abandon us. 

we cut into the lie and watch it suffer. 

we say we know. but we're not even close.  

the yellow thump of gratitude struggles. in the vague nausea of partially controlled intersections. the dichotomy of skin fails. as both a deterrant and a catalyst. the pandemonium of want. solves us before we can even begin to parse the math.

we're animals. alive at the corners. dead in the middle.

the maps are loud. the roads are deaf. no language. other than desire. the grim expectations of the wounded.

we find each other. between the raindrops. on the cusp of the wind. we play the game. as if winning is an option.

the distance measures us. in tungsten and sulfur. love our primitive time machine. and the years much too sober.

the solvent accord. death is much too patient a friend. numbers sweat. years listen. the orbit is resolved. the gravity is stubborn. no sober heroics. nor broken rubber bands. will alter the course. each night the war occurs. every morning it ends.

teeth in the wind. chew. gnaw. rarely swallow. hunger's place is far outside this shrinking crucible of paper hearts..

she digs. as if the path has a motive. she digs because the struggle seduces. graves resonate with hope. the promise of the end. a distant Eden ripe with murder.

shallow cuts diminish the skin. the ostentatious circus of touch. spoils everything.

the curtain. the snow and ice. the weather decides us. in suffocating storms. and the depths of our shovels. as we dig through a mountain of moments in search of a path. blades cut the winter. but it's only we who are bled. carve the sun. ambivalent monsters. dead switches.

we wear the nails. we thirst for the hammer. as the structure comes undone. soft walls divide us. a glimpse of light briefly splits years of darkness.

the hollow resonance of wolves and piglets. a broken fairy tale. desperate for a moral that isn't present.

the shelter. the simple math. of complex conditions. the Doppler effect. the echo of surrender. when there's nothing left to want.

margins fuss and fiddle over the textures and the friction. the edge rarely speaks. except to say that it's close. wild atoms flaunt their tender nuclei. hungry patterns in a stubborn universe. chase the hollow colors memory uses in  the blanks.

the middle seldom notices. fading footprints. as the weather effortlessly erases us. the trajectory continues. the path simmers. like a tea kettle left to boil. violently we scream for purpose. in a deaf world.

a snicker of choices amongst a roar of conditions. confessing clowns drowning in their masks. curious monsters examining their claws.

no blood. just pieces. a morbid jigsaw puzzle. collecting faces.

gravity in slopes and flurries. the tug of the weather on skin exposed. no rain. just bites of cold. and the hot precision of time's poison.

perhaps it was then. that she knew. the difference between gods and monsters. the full girth of that ample  kingdom where all regrets live.

her paper fingers reach for, but cannot hold. the heavy inks her silence confesses. open doors on frantic rooms. the hysterical math of pussies and penises.

permanent creases in a temporary world.

she uses her time preparing the beginnings. and the ends. what's in between she leaves to chance. she wears the moon in drapes and syringes. a choke for the reluctant drug. a chaos of seams. in an ocean of thread.

the heavy colors refuse her. the round dials are impossible to grip. an epiphany of ignorance consumes her. as she waits in line for her lottery ticket.

folds in the hours. stern buckets boast their sand. the weight of the precipice. laughs as she loses her balance.

she's old now. she notices. she's weak too, she suspects. as those empty kisses brush her lips.

life is more machine than man. much more engine than it is skin. a trembling sieve. a flickering bulb. everything uncertain.

her stubborn ghosts. finally pause to listen. but there are no more words.

crippled dogs. bent fangs arguing with the darkness. stony barks punctuate the abyss. between this night and tomorrow. the withered world trundles in and out. in a hiss of choices. she watches herself. from a distant perch. resenting thr stranger that owns her face.

cold buttons pressed deep on hot machines. the limp of chaos catching up. as we stumble toward the margins. the dull pastels of victims. softly reiterating fading bridges. muted echoes spilling over with color. hungry portraits with their teeth in the steel.

quiet monsters tell their stories in folds of skin. and little wrinkles in time. colorless rainbows chase the sun.  pretending to know. the fractions.  that devour the distance.

there is infinite math in every breath. an eternity of subtracting, multiplying and division. the bashful needle of addition not dismissed. the pages crease. and the ink stains. withering biographies overtake earnest flesh.

time's engine sputters. overcome by the distance.

soft slopes draw their lines. a timid virus. eager to infect. the number throbs. the words beat. small storms in a series of hurricanes. she bends to reach the monster's lips. her moment forged in the anticipation. costly choices spent too easily.

they touch the glass. the sober arithmetic of want. needles without thread. stitching together moonbeams and whispers. their proximity to preception a telling embrace.

empty drawers clutch the darkness. with aching fists and dull pencils. the story is always the same. faces on the dime. ripe with familiar edges. and missing walls. a ritual of faces. each one more distant than the last.

a scrape of wolves. all disguised quite well. eager to devour grandma's lunch. the thick of the woods still at her heels. as she notices the claws.between their fingers.

a chaos of conditions swelling to create. each tiny moment in a series of trillions. a cannon of flesh. in a war of absense.

telling the red. in coughs and scratches. her dirty glasses. her hungry eyes. eager puppets with so many broken zippers. it's cold still. even in this fire. pieces. the jaws of the puzzle find the center. neglected the edges have their own wars.

ugly ducklings paint their mirrors. in thick asides. the story chases, but falls behind. the machine rumbles and churns. confident with rage. Time boasts and brags. Shy predators circle.

So many folds. An oragami of moments. Revise the shape. Betray the math. Of two dimensional lovers.

The deaf colors try to listen. The mute chaos strains to speak. As everything converges. in a mistrial of flesh.

simple boxes. their dusty lids. a poetry of proximity and confession. a labor of gentle madesss. the ugly duckling alive in a beautfiful finish.

Her grey ocean still licks the edges. Her sinking boat still leverages the wind. drifting. the storm is easy. It's the afterwards that stings.

those yellow doors haunt her again. slivers of sickness running parallel to the lock. the hours form their paradox. with threads of skin perpendicular and needles fouled in want. those empty rooms are too patient with their contents. she grows old waiting for them to reveal what is lost.

these blue roads boast of journeys to be taken. or to be taken by. wagging tongues in the mouths of fate. puke their treasure maps.

alone has always suited her. moreso with age. her voice a monster. manic with rage. her heart a bucket. riddled with holes.

she chases the colors. yellow doors. blue roads. purple thresholds. paths to take. or to be taken by. destinations more alive than she's ever been.

places. to be. someone else.

colorful places.

needles and thread. to mend the holes.

bent blades search for true. the anatomy of decision drowns us in more tendons than bones. the suffering sky. bleeds. singing blood from every hole. stalling monsters with useless sticks and stones.

the antipathy. counting backward. the puzzle of humanity. time and all its mischievous cousins. bet our passions against our weakness. and seldom lose.

blind epiphanies wear the wind. She sees in numbers. She breathes in atoms. Everything broken. or waiting to be fixed. a shit of gods. A piss of lovers. to prove the words have betrayed.

the softer darkness lets her in. an hysteria of conditions. the least of which is if. careless gods blame the mountain for their falls.

it's only time. scarce moments have their names for us.

the waiting consumes. whores, thieves and scientists.

the end surfaces in a wormhole. sharp against parting flesh. all futures promised to other destinies.

Cohesion lingers as a single tiny knot in infinite lengths of chaos. We are painfully small. It's not science at all. It's inappropriate flesh. Smothering violence. Sallow hunger. Brilliant madness. And the devastating worlds they construct within.