Cataloging Scabs

the distance swallows much more than it unfolds.

her tender arrows. her sharp scars. choke the on the moments.

a dark theater. still echoing the play. long after the audience has gone home and all the actors have left the stage.

patient thieves in their torn raincoats. trace the edges. careless slopes and thoughtless angles. the fading pastels of her want. the persistent stabs of regret. through the thin paper memory presses toward the sun. these shaky lines define us. these hollow edges rage for depth.

the stubborn inertia of a touch. wags us forward. limp and derelict ghosts perform the calloused rituals of life. red candy lips. sweet and sour with dissipation. cold pillows. smooth with entropy. barking dogs. fierce with circumstance.

the end is always the beginning in these scenarios.we struggle against the linear. Caught fish. Gills to the sun as the water mercilessly recedes. intimacy is always a fool. distance always a tyrant.

the thunder waits. for the storm to catch up. as we simmer in our discontent.

we wither in the desert. blood shadows. bone darkness. drowning in it. parched, yet unwilling to drink. 

the theory of  the machine. the peculiar pendulum of the heart. as it sways us. in every direction. and takes us nowhere.