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. 

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.

we run up the hill. so sure of ourselves. 

puppets on time's stiff strings.

chewing on all the knots

that we've created.


eventually, we tumble down it. 

negotiating the truth at every bruise. 

snakes with paper fangs

selling their expired venoms. 

time and time again,

we reach the apex. 

only to discover that

the bucket we carry is full of holes.