here me, hear this. a swallowing, a hum. short of reaching, something like this, sweat off the skin. electric hair, withered on ends. ankles buckling, where were we? start again. over. once over. wet dirt on the heels of. wrists cracked sideways. i never would have believed it. puts you right back where i started. begin again. from the top, where the skin grows thin. never was. as if still dreaming. mildew between the folds, getting torn by the second.

rabid dogs prowl through fog. we dreamt this in caves of ice while the goosebumps danced across our nipples. what a fine thing he was, a mallet without pretension, all blunt force and shatter. she pined away in the corners of bars, spiraling outward all that further away. and through the wind and rain, a steady breathing unlike any other, a pace none of us could match or withstand.

thin ice, a hangman’s tale. she wove tales out of happenstance and skewed memory, where we were all victors and she the spoil. marred like broken bark, the fleshiness underneath. a finger without a nail, no gloss, nothing to for the nerves. i once told myself, drunken and worn in front of a mirror, you will die like this, you will die broken. look at me when i am talking to you, and i slump over the sink, knees slammed hard into tile for cool comfort.

leave it at that, the grinding of teeth. cajoled and threatened, lice along the skin. an oily thickness, evermore, never said. leave it. alone and beckoning, shrill ring in the night. a certain kind of madness, parched lips. she once told me. he once promised. rewrite, remake, return. he once told me. she kept all her promises. i beat myself into street lamps and not one wish for incredible violence comes true. empty penance. leave it at that.

in the trenches, the knuckle-shift, the weight-bearing, the having-it-all: I came out of all of it unscathed, disgusting, a blather of a person. revealed as I always was, sham, shame. strive for redemption, the empty belly, the pining for hunger, crouched over. wait for it, the sudden pummel, the avalanche karma, the break down, the breakthrough, the leaving of all this pain behind. never arrive, only waiting. leave it at that.

the night the most cruelest mistress: she hides everything in the dark, gives you only the most fleeting of tastes, whispers into your ear, makes promises you barely remember when the dawn comes. i have chased her, i have lost her, i have had her spit me out wasted and exhausted on to curbs.

here now, all real, all surreal, happening as if never before. daylight like twilight. afternoon into a haze. you’ve never slept like this before. everything rearranged, realigned, a sub group, sub par. will it leave scars. out of dreaming, a dreamt life. suddenly and viciously, like never before. gaussian blur, the fleeting glimpse. you were never here, you never arrived, you never left. buckle down and wait for it.