limping monsters chasing seldom dolls. 

change simmering in their pockets.

the wind asks its questions. the answers stolen long before. 

the distance pivots. unaware of how close we were. 

the memory grins. 

its teeth shattered. its tongue missing.

the silence whispers. no one hears it.

the earnest magician has misplaced his rabbit. 

but his top hat is still heavy with tricks.

time counts its breaths. anticipating the last one. 

the miles stiffen. disregarding our lingering pursuit.

the stage is skin. the spotlight is touch.

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.

 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.

 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. 

places between. sunken tethers. 
voices in skin. quiet and absolute.

too close to see. too far to reach. 
a murder of consent.

a bargain with time. 
far too reliant on the generosity of trust.

worn dresses. spent by grief. 
sold just the same.

the auction of time 
unmoved by our shame. 

the solvency of touch. 
boasts its detours. 

a curious refuge
in empty pockets. 

a series of loose zippers
chewing on nothing.

 time tumbles forward. an awkward despot in leaden clothes. 

delicate creases in the skin of choice inevitably become permanent.

we wear each other like plastic skeletons. fragile architects. 

clumsy bridges. mutual orphans chewing on rotting candy houses.

in the light we see how dark it was.

stalled on crumbling steps.

turning on the lingering epiphanies of sweat and contrition. 

the body slouches. in a temporary madness. overwhelmed by the filthy math of silence.

looking for breadcrumbs in all the wrong places.

in the distance we see how close it was. 

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. 

 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.

colder still flees the auditor. broken beads and slithered flesh. 

tantamount to the many coffins that lie ahead.

absent is the heavy yoke of time. as we are torn toward our simmering oblivion.

scolded in scattered lies. spent too soon.

change chokes on our ample arrogance.

lilting saviors stare into the sun. and peddle their blindness.

expectation tangles its knots.

so we gather our empty skins,

gravity bites down so hard.

that we let it swallow us.

sneak a tear. swipe a grin. 

chase the ugly. wear the panic.

twisting eyes pretend to see.

the edges bend to greet us. 

as we slouch toward our shame.

flesh knows, but seldom speaks. 

of all the ways that we betray it.

drops of blood paint their pictures.

the sweet sigh of temptation taints our lungs.

every choice stiffened by so many thieves.

not the least of which, are under our skin.

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. 

 turning salamanders wither under the choke of time. 

the weight of their breath both sweet and sour.

closer still to the grin of the edge. 

and the cautious thieves that wear its fangs.

the choice seizes our skin. cold and accurate. 

brittle vanity against the thunder of change.

we only have the names that they give us. 

and the ones that they take away.

empty footprints resonate with the distance.

we don't measure how far we've come.

it measures us.

 no names nor ugly apertures. only the constant of the orbit. as the center strains against our hunt. 

the peculiar division of words. all wet paint and spoiled corners. the ache of the perpendicular. as time peels away our skin. 

no more counting. as the catastrophe unwinds us. 

just numbers. alone in their utter absolution. and all the equations that ultimately failed them. 

simple lines. like the wind daring the sun, and stumbling colors. letting us fall. 

no choices. only the curious conceit of expired thoughts. so many little boxes. full of dead things. 

waiting to be opened. 

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. 

time boasts its ugly corners. 
a delicate bargain of shame and power. 

caustic dolls loosed from their dresses. 
chewing on their plastic grins.

their voices come in proper storms. 
a cornucopia of why. 

time sells us. our want its only commodity. 
tangled ribbons in the throats of strays. 

the paradox of simple thieves 
with nothing left to steal. 

their world all back doors and breadcrumbs. 
change just a small piece of candy caught in our teeth. 

time melts under our skin. a glorious disease. 
offering a cure with each new infection. 

progress overtakes us. 
a long series of murders 

time listens for our surrender.
as if we still have something left to lose.

the floods come and go. 
fickle mercenaries in an unconscious war. 
the tepid catastrophes of eager flesh. 

the bridges are collapsed. 
as bridges tend to do in storms. 
especially when we take them for granted. 

the distance is a curious thief. 
a long string of paper dolls. 
severed at their wrists. 

the story has its own agenda
mostly candy houses  
and unattended ovens. 

even as the pages dwindle, 
we dutifully keep count
of all those discarded skins.

we know we'll wear them again
in our next fairy tale. 

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 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.  

dirty little footprints soil their path.

casual narrators bite their tongues.

sold again to the numbers between the text. 

time yawns. a cordial surrender.

change lurches forward. swarmed by memory's hornets. 

touch stutters. fallen apples tug at the curtain. a very particular grief. 

frail bones in heavy skins. wear their consent in borrowed pockets and absent buttons.

thoughtlessly betrayed by the furious economy of love. 

the distance presses its weight into our shame. 

a long series of broken paths. poisoned by their destination.

discarded masks with our faces sewn inside them. 

missing eyes and severed lips in their rocking chairs.

puliing on all the wrong zippers. 

time's tired apostles crawl into their soiled beds.

ragged souvenirs in an ongoing apocalypse.

the edge of the world always there in their throats.

as they chew on the sun.

gossamer skin in the whisper of a bruise.

the years pace in their sunken cages.

a broken animal.

we wear the distance. in brutal numbers.

letting the math choke on us.

the truth is a corrosive.

a barking stage full of tangled puppets.

we say it's enough.

because we wish it was.