The Mercies of Why

it's cold until it isn't. distant corners nurture the darkness. in shouts of when. and stabs of how. each puzzle is solved. in a roar of surrender.

the day broke. louder than usual. all torn threads and grinning foxes. the road won. as it always has. the panics of flesh quickly turning sour.

we maneuver these graceless skeletons. in an endless contest of broken promises. our thoughts all curdled milk and rotted flesh. and that nagging hunger still not sated.

it's not the colors that we see. it's not the poison that we taste. as the end comes. in pinpricks and whispers. in drizzling rain and distant thunder. all the empty storms that make us forget the sun.

it's the nothing that motivates. the gears in the void biting down. consuming.  the little pieces that remain.

it's choice. the weak narcotic that pushes blood through bone.  too long after that connection is broken.

it's life. still feasting on time's hollow carcass. long after the meat is gone.