all things come out of the dark, slithery things without spines but slick. things that bump up against your heel and your ankle and climb gingerly up your leg with sharp little teeth that you would barely notice if they were not so quick and warm and wet.
and bigger things come out of the dark reared up on hind legs that bend in the opposite direction with their tongues pitched out and draped over their shoulders flicking this way and that swatting out the light from your eyes, tasting your tears.
and here we were with night lights and door locks and bed covers and silver knobs and crucifixes but we did nothing about the closets or the radiators, we never thought something so terrible could fit into the pipes, could escape through the cracks of things.

someone says smile to take your picture and you turn to face the camera. you are not alone but you are the only one turning. and when the shutter snaps you are caught turning away from those that love you.

doing it again, on the porch, out in the world. chill but bearable, like all things. we get used to it. slower now, too much thought, just do it. the doing and the saying, nothing ever makes it to the page. the words get lost. no translation, just loss, total and complete. but there is a moment of clarity, a string that finds itself, threads through. hang on to that string, a life, a rope, keep it from being a noose.

two once into nothing. grains between the skin and the quick, nails parsed and rendered swollen into a thickness. had i dreamt, had i slept, the denial waking in the belly. and there on your knees you cannot face it. there on your hand you spit it out. roots of withered grass once green and heaving rough dry wads of knotted brown roots. i can spit it all out but changes nothing.

bricks and teeth. these things repeat. hands and thighs, like a cavalcade of hoofs pounding the earth. it bares repeating. jaws wide open until the tongue waggles into the wind. broken and bleeding, twice more, once over, not stopping. shudder and speaking, flail loose, frayed ends of fingers looking for a grasp. and the road, the night and a sun that yields no warmth.

break halves into words and words into morsels of salted meat for thirst between fingers before gently opened mouths hungry for one kiss more. two hands tired of breathing on hips longing upwards and we both dream living. and time stops.