12.14.25

Sterling, she stood there. Blue-eyed and moonlit, some fascination in the hair. Her carapace, stilted and stained, torn wide from the dull sheen of blades. Fragrant palms turned over pretty in the shutting of sly indifference, she places her bets from afar.

An inkling, a tear, a shedding of fur to the damned — how long, how deep, how splendid to the leaving? In vibrant hours we’d forgotten our stitching. In stinging nights we’d crackle harmoniously. Now, twisted and broken, it was inevitable.

Cold, steamed and wet against the cheeks, breath comes heavy in the freeze. There’s a sigh that only highway winds could love, that trepid feeling before the plunge. The mask, the scarf, the gloves to carry a burden — always wondering “What then?” as if fragility were a natural state.

Never are we licking the red succor of the self. In favor of a warm smile to mule the pains instead, set thrashing in the arms of some self-ordained craftsmen. Where is the rider, then, when all have left town for their wealths? Is that the meaning, then? Four hooved and bleeding, to trebled heart and soul.

11.19.25

My head is killing me. All harsh thoughts and deviate ponderings ring out like the dripping of a tap.

11.18.25

There’s no space to stretch.

11.16.25

I’m all out of touch. I dug myself up, that much is certain, but circumstance alters what was found. I can’t be too sure why, in the idle motions, I stopped the care and patience with the cigarettes and meal prep.

Any sort of dependence brings out that base nature, the thrashing survival, like the rattling of pipes in distant walls — the beating which disturbs sleep. I’m out of rhythm. I have too much to worry for. Where is this panic nested? the Shrike in my heart, which hoists carcass at the forefront of mind?

Carols and windchimes, my only concern in such distance from the individual. Did I begin the reliance of self alone? Finally, in the grieving, to need none and lose my weeping? Trapped in quarrels of contemplation. I dare not share them, yet they bleed to be known by even my own.

11.10.25

I’ve lost the middle, somewhere in between conception and tomorrow. This, whatever it is, remains some dream to me. Terrible and sad in the hours of which beauties come, I cannot measure the worth of being thrown this way and that. I’ve remained only a surviving thing, a rat with teeth worn down to shards — basely, an anachronism.

What wisdoms come with the broad shoulders of emotion? When should they crack and bend to the right tune? Now, this hour where I find myself counting, appears the remnants of another’s life, who has built this stage. Instead I find myself enthralled by the dust of the floorboards.

11.5.25

There’s brown in the conifery. I mind it less.

11.4.25

When did the body lose its terrible sanctity? Grasping at the wisps of attentive kisses to sustain the feebled self. This is the dead of tissue and the freeze of competence. Such inconsiderations deemed docile and natured — a housecat of ashes.

Those shades were misbehavings, weren’t they? The jewel is cut, now. It is certain that a few can see right through its refractions down, down to true deep color. Somehow, the green of the mirror shifts the hue — a sigh to the eyes.

11.3.25

A farewell nestled in the verdant circle, a groan against the swell. It bloats in breath and exhales to finality. Milk at the breast of its enclosed and burdened body, where root and tangle rip briar toward the heart.

Silent, that finality lands its perch and drop the prey — wet. Squelching, fearing, smarting for the hunger that bites in the ribs, beginning claims a home merely upon the asking.

This beast would be here, rain, snow or shine, whether it was wanting or not. The legs carried and the blood rushed to strain the muscled crying, where soft furred beast is born to a viper’s venom. Here, in the barbarity, it steels its claw and tooth.

11.2.25

The familiar distance swells. Chill turns red and the twisting begins. Can the struggler trust himself? Where, then, does he draw that line between fate and choice? Lack of faith, substitution for needled regrets, curls rightly to intestine.

Dreaming to the fullest extent, that horrid chitter which tones in the black corners. Nightmares escape sleep, for the doubts keep such better company. Not so different from ambitions, wells pool deeper with deceit.

10.22.25

It’s the same horse on the same path and, somewhere in between the sighs and the wedding of gums, I yawn hard enough to give myself a toothache. I’m caught up in the dues and I don’t know why. I forget that I’ve been given everything I’ve asked for time and time again, whether I’ve wanted it or not.

Really, I should be thankful. That’s the American dream. Sure, there were roadblocks. Sure, there were the times where I was holding up signs, unable to spit out a word, but that’s the process. That’s the clawing, dead to this road rash.

10.8.25

A relief against the window spray snow I’d used to cover up her teething. The pains and swelling it’d caused, unknown in my absence. I was off burying the dog. I made sure everyone knew.

A light, a refrain, a terrible sound, like a gong in the intestine, turns me toward the pattern. Self imposed, it razed no hearts and I could not smolder for it. It disappoints to find this reckless cat and mouse she finds so comforting bites pointedly at the kind.

Barking, feasting, slobbered old fool. It was never only you who broke the mirror.

10.5.25

Analogous falseness washes from us in the fullness of the moonlight. Pleasures of the flesh relieve that careful measure of the reconditious nature, peace and silence to the mind. Found absolutions in the eyes, shone silver in skylight, which behold beyond the bounds of

10.4.25

That black dog which sits the splintered porch is gone today. Off preying small, I’d assume. I’d finally stepped outside, in light of its absence, knocking the critters from my boots. A chance to sit in the quiet, with ease to the tuning of my strings.

He wasn’t always that way. No, but the biting drew. What hurt that poor thing held, deads the nerves ‘round the scarring. Somewhere off there, we put’em away and forgot, but he always comes back to sit. I haven’t the heart to stare into those milk eyes anymore.

Funny how the otherworldly could become so insipid in the reflect. A terror, really, when you consider the breathing. Those strays he’d bring home, feeling large to their pains, never helped anyone. Least of all, me. He’ll come back grey soon.

10.3.25

Should man define himself on the infrequencies of sparrows, those soft thoughts that come vivid and convincing? Perspective does not lend to the matter at hand. States of the body, trepidations as countenance, which rip and tear the whole to fragment the surroundings.

Where should this pearl hide, pressed to polish, expelled at times most inconvenient? Should lowly beast come to bare its stomach, a fatal blow in return to memory. In spite of this, shouting of dogs come swift from the chest to seize and flail the wounded. I haven’t found the deadbolt.

10.2.25

Wired draw of lonely winds to brace the kisber felver. The bite of the dew and cloth of the lowered cloud, which hangs above the verdance. Idle, patient, the steady hoof and gnaw of its black maned being.

Its only proof, that it’s been observed. Still, against the shrubbery, at the distance it is beheld — jeweled to the fineries of man. Somewhere, in the soul, a prison to the flesh of open fields.

Where was the choice, where it mattered most? The conception? The resolve? Pasted some place dank and secret, where only the least known voices creak, is the peace and comfort. Is that the hesitation of desire — the regret of being?

10.1.25

Bodily refusal to weep in the reverberations of unforetold kindness. Sleep is dense and the cowering falls aside, dissatisfied. The dew on fresh sunned grass, heated and misted, crawls a spidered nest of fog across the gutters and lawns.

The shrivel in the chill, I can’t bring myself to click on the radio at all. A smoldered silence of bent road and vent-borne heat sings instead. Fall now turns in her corduroys. She smirks in the small hours to my convenience. I wrap and tremble in my sleeves turned steel.

This hum of the Becoming, weighted and obligatory, should sit eager and pining. She has come with the season, I must assume, to return with consequence. Dropped lips and scowled to the air of now, where contented wondering shakes to the possibilities.

9.28.25

Passenger seat, window glued in idle indifference to the verbal thrashing of the driver. The start and stop of impatience that jolts the box van pulls the seatbelt taught, as if it could brace wide-eyed before a fall. Unlikely to bedevil my heart, only a minor annoyance, an aside reveals this mewling in retroflection.

These boots are polished now, against the odds. I was never a betting man. Hell, I hadn’t seen the signs. I was curled in the mill, steel breathed and feigning. “Some sort of martyrdom,” told in quiet to the young, already forty. There is no catabasis. I’m here and I’m well. Perhaps the familiarity is enough to stop the counting, silent and trembling.

The primordial nature to die a good man, father and son aches in the chest. The denim of it, the steel and flash, only smoke. Somewhere in the night, like a toppled corn-side stop sign, it passed me by. The taste of it, suede and warm in the salt of a palm, turned. The measure wasn’t legible.

9.27.25

Waking to secrets in the ear, I remember it all and nothing. Words crash to sand on the mind’s sleep, but touch reminds of rest. Stillness, profound and slaking, offered in the sun’s blue reflection. It’s almost as if no time has passed. The vigil of your patience sits owled to dreaming. I wonder if I’d roused at all.

Unpinned in the shade of my books and tapes, the sloper folds apart. Despite such sight intoxication, doubt wells the reserves. The museum of the self exsanguinates from differed perspective, caught in the “what’s” and “if’s.” It’s hard to remember he’s not in the room. It’s only me, painted open and drunk on the presence of pinions.

Excavatory blubberings are all that is managed. It’s not enough. I cannot muster the dexterity to navigate myself with textured and measured thought. In which ways does the owl find restraint and interest to maintain the pressures of love with such lowly vermin — the rat which hides its hoard?

9.26.25

Somebody somewhere is hurt. The sirens tell, but tonight it isn’t me. The bassline hums and that spare tire on the passing Corolla is putting in its last hour. I know the face. I’ve worn it. Blue eyes tear wide and upward as the formalities commence. In the sincerity of the gaze, I churn over into something else altogether.

Whir of VHS overhead and our syntax makes sense. Terror Vision in the retina, the crowd laughs and applauds. The comedic frustration blurs the disturbance and I find myself grinning through pinches and charms.

All back to arms, where the churning ends. No room for sublimation. Nothing necessitates sacrifice or obfuscation. Searching in the grove for a lynchpin, we find only moral resemblance. That haggard grief finds no foothold. The varmint rests curled and shaded, scratched behind the ear.

9.25.25

Somewhere in the discursive thoughts, there’s some of me left. Windows on split, I can almost see through the glue I’ve welded with. It’s only when I set some principle – secure some vantage from which I can right some wrong, and it’s always me.

Tired, bruised – removed from adoration and wilting. I don’t grasp the applause. I don’t want it at all. So, where does this yearn root? All else and being is sovereign besides my own. The desire is not to be raised, but looked down on and determined.

Clarity, the rarest of states, comes flaunting in the hours it is least useful. Its retrospect does nothing to ease my despondent dispositions. I don’t have the answers, only direction and choice. Living by circumstance has only deepened the wells of discomfort and hatred.

It has never been the person’s appearance, though they’ve all been beautiful in their ways. It has never been what’s between their legs, for I’ve had little interest. The burden in the stomach is strangely chaste — sapphic, despite my demeanor. There’s little to describe the urge and want. Description falls through the fingers.

Yet, it all comes close in the press of flesh. I almost have an answer when they ask me, for once, what I am. The freeze and stutter paints for me. I realize in the sudden that I curl away, a dog who’s vomited on the favored rug. This difference, too new and unusual, burns a smile in the cheeks, flushed red.

Knowing only what the self is not is far different from the answer to their inquiry. Preconceptions turn ash on my tongue in the presence of such beautiful confidence. This action — this meeting, captured providence.

9.24.25

This town’s not the same anymore.

The stop signs have lights now

and, if the roads could bleed,

they would.

I’m still a bad man’s son,

in my sparkle and lace.

Autumn comes weeping this year. Her tears trickle on the rust of change. My self importance determines that they must be for me. Though, logically, they are pushed aside in convenience to self neglect. There isn’t the time to grieve the man of yesterday, who’d tremble and scare under the goal.

“Now. Today. The hour. Do not lose sleep over a good thing,” mumbled to the self under the pop and atmosphere of a cafe. Smart to attention at the mention of a name. “Mike” will suffice. They don’t need the specifics.

Fumbling of the skin in the close of it. Somehow I skate by on the presentation of normal desire to arrive at the intention to be held. The attempt to regrow what was surgically removed over the course of years.

Falsely indebted, a pound of flesh is the most expeditious method. They’re just as hungry as you, rooftop and perching. Who are you to say no to such a privilege — sight of the unpreened and disordered? Surely, I’d have the answer by now.