Terminal Thirst

the numbers fail me. just as they always have. still i keep counting. determined. to prove how far we've strayed. how close we've been.

chalk lines on the pavement. the dead carelessly dismissed.

the orbit has its pull. the greed of the darkness as daylight relents. time weighted with an impotent chaos. frail cocoons that lay empty. threatening to prove. how useless change is.

untransformed i seethe. withering in the famine of my own existence. always searching. hungry for a proper assassin.

i remember every perfect moment. with a crippling clarity. but i can't recall a single kiss. perhaps there were none. or maybe i've forgotten. the one detail that would easily destroy this.

it's natural enough now. to say to myself it was and won't be again. it's tempting enough still to imagine what almost was.

the maps have all been drawn. the turns have all been taken.

yet we haven't moved an inch.