there is no doubling back, only doubling down:
a larger wager for greater stakes with thinner margins
of error, for error, fraught with error
the mistake is the wager, the mistake is walking into this casino
when you could be on that boardwalk, engulfed in sea spray
wishing lemons into limes, cherries with laughter,
one perfect crystal moment for all the madness inside you

I dream in parallelograms, layer upon layer with cross hatches and ruptures, breaks and unsteady balance. concordances and sharp edges.
i dream in rivers and of drowning. i dream of a vast everything that blows apart the void and withers my skin.
i dream of her voice beside me, below my ear, breath on my neck. i dream her gone. i dream myself alive and wretched.
I dream in rage and sorrow and remorse, of lost causes and scar issue.

write like this, drean like this, at a pace, slowly, like kneading bread, all muscle snd torque and anguish. impossible.

drink this. wine. i hate wine. it reminds me of churches and old people. people waiting to die. people wistful of times long gone. people that stare at you in villages in faraway homelands when you visit. people who once knew better, think they know better, but know nothing at all because the world they once lived in, grew in, loved in, is long gone. people who marvel over toasters and think the bread tastes funny. people who believe in bakeries and gossip. people who shook their heads slowly form side to side and reminisce of better behaving children, better dressed men, better behaved women. people who no longer drink wine, who never even had a taste for it.

live work breathe despair
rough night, torn towels, a razor blade caught in the grout
eyes worked over twice and thin, hollow, teeth set at odd angles from grinding
slow grind, from the stretch, just before it all begins again and leaves you weeping
there is no hope, only this, over and over, slow molasses roiling, thickening out
and if the bones weren’t so strong, the meat so thick
a noose would be so much handier
or a very very long journey into the void

i believe escapism to be a complete chore.

out into the bleed, universes come.

she pulls lilacs from sewer drains and he walks over to her, resplendent, dashing, missing tufts of hair, cut eyebrows.
she smiles and offers him a molar. he kneels down, takes it and fits it into his coat pocket. it drops through the tear in it and rolls aropund his ankles.
we’ve seen this all before, he says and points out the green sky, the orange haze of autumn, the crows in the distance.
she nods, stares at nail bitten fingers, and whispers, but we were younger then. so much younger.

are we all that terrible, like spines and webs, like halloween run amok. and i hold my daughter’s face and gaze the purest perfection, selfless and selfish, knowing and unknown, oblivious and obliterating. my son tangles my feet in barbed wire and sings in tap dance shoes belting out a melody as if he were in the rain or a musical. i reach for her and i strain, i miss her terribly. there she, right there but i am not close enough, i have gone too far for far too long. time, time is such a vicious and relentless thing.