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. 

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.

 time has its own measures for the volume of blood spilled.

the parable of skin is written by spurious strangers.

we wear our trust in lazy nooses.

choking on the knots we've made in its rope.

stilted by the lingering bruises.

flesh has its own equations.

to calculate the value of each touch.

we merely stumble over its numbers,

pretending to understand the cost.

sometimes change stumbles over itself. a clumsy dictator in the lingering aristocracy of want.

the threshold is too complacent. as our monsters destroy the locks.

sometimes we are free only because everything is lost.

the door is still wide open. because we're waiting for the bodies to be removed.

sometimes we are only small pieces. in a puzzle of consent. 

as we wonder which villains belong in our bed.  

sometimes the distance measures itself. because we've forgotten where we started from. 

wandering through the forest in our little red hoods. 

searching for just the right wolves. 

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. 

the end tosses its coins into the foundtain. 
an obvious surrender.
as our wishes prove false. 

patient monsters.
listen to the rain fall.
spent by the spurious motives of lazy storms. 

we count.
gnawing on our fingers, as flesh
considers the scope of its power. 

we test the colors.
as the storms tug on our zippers.
desperate to measure the resilience of its poison. 

we touch the windows.
with severed thumbs.
enchanted by everything we cannot hold. 

frail fists clutch their wagers.
against the diminishing odds. 

a series of choices. 
simplified by touch. 
complicated by when. 

orphans navigating 
the topography of strangers.
seraching for a backdoor.

stray thieves.
with their guns in their back pockets.
counting the bullets on the ground.

ignoring the blood. 

loyal beasts gather their grins.
the perpetual fever of touch,
digs sweetly in their hardened bones.

time accumulates its debts,
in chafing skin
and ugly distractions.

curious monsters,
chew on the empty pockets
in abandoned rooms.

the distance is sour
as it coats our lips.
in raw betrayal.

we bite into the fruit,
even as our skin is ripe
with so many treasons. 

the light falters. worn by too many shadows.

seldom rabbits in the tall grass. tremble under the watchful gaze of paralyzed wovles.

ghosts in the doorway dig their fingers into our thoughts. selling resurrection from the bottom of their boots. 

the light falters. divided by too many windows.

ambivalent corpses stiffen in the soft refraction. swimming through the jagged edges of the glass. the petulant inhabitants of abandoned skins. 

the light falters. cut by the sharp corners where it tends to stray. 

our voices linger at the threshold. timid orphans with severed tongues. 

slender threads knotted in all the wrong places. are all that conenct us. 

quieter still spun the  path. shedding all the turbulence from dead flesh. 

the why trundled onward. a sliver of a reason. amongst the immensity of our nothing. 

i had been waiting. chewing on the silence. thinking it could sate my hunger. 

i had been counting. the contents of the fairy tale. 

the witches. the wolves. the victims. 

imagining there might be a ratio that could reconcile. 

all the broken equations under our skin. 

i had been watching the rain fall. anticipating the flood. 

waiting to drown. 

forgetting that i knew how to swim. 

time she surmised had its own agenda.
a path meticulously situated between corruption and salvation.
sharp dice in the hands of strangers.
speckling every victory with someone else's blood.

choice she supposed had tried too hard.
a sunken variable.
stranded in a sseries of unsolved equations.

it continued to function,
though everything about it was wrong.
an arrogant parade of limping assassins.
all their precious bullets wasted on the dead.

time she assumed was deaf.
a student of all the words it couldn't hear.
the simple truth much more complicated
than she had anticipated. 

choice she noticed
was a fragile construct. 
its straw house being the first to collapse.
when the wolf  comes to call.

the road swallowed her.
step by step.
in sunken victories.
and stilted surrenders.

she always wore the future
in its tightest clothes.
every crevice grinning.
as those hungry zippers bit down.

it's obvious she whispered.
letting the distance continue to grow.
every intersection stutteering.
as she pretended to know where she was going. 

it's a parody of some kind. 

to think that we can control
the myriad of trees falling

in our forest unheard.

skin makes so many promises
that we can never hope to keep. 
the curious convictions of 
animals loosed from their cages. 

our claws are red for a reason.
the road continues because
there are more places we must go. 

time yawned.
disenchanted with our simplicity.

it fell asleep in her bed.
napping on her wrinkled sheets.
unaware of all the monsters lurking below.

she took a taste as its buttons fell away.
tempted by the curious anatomy of choices.

she whispered her desires in distance's ear.
knowing it wasn't listening.

worn by lingering questions.
undressed by strangers.
sorting her math with the decimals she'd misplaced.

the value of skin fluctuating like the dubious commodity is it.
the tables she thought were finished turning still had other plans.

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.