This quicksand doesn't give out refunds, so please keep pulling. Whatever is left of me, is yours.

When you go, I'll be
getting comfortably
carefully
closer to my grave

When I lay
the last time
it will be
like any old day

There's this particular palette of feeling I lost, and now must be satisfied to watch dry.

Bodies fold in this smoulder, emptying the air from out their heads, evacuating the lingering dread that inside they're already dead.
Souls writhe in this disorder, touching anything that they can, reverberating the color red as the blue fire slowly gets colder.
From where
Did this
Empti  
             ness
Find
A wish
That arms
Could bear?
Every atom clashes, and in this disarray, ecstasy establishes a Winter King's reign.
As these fingers touch this skin, reason goes insane. Following the heat, as aimless as the rain.
How
Does one
Conjoined
Within
Reach  
            out
To heal
To mend?

Whispering denials in the grips of evidence,
The body draws to pleasures in lieu of spiritual penance

What words raise walls, and furnish this space, vivify this mirage, breathe life into this place, what words will trace, agree with the soul, with objective grace, this subjective toll, what words can chart, with terse sentiment, if only just a part, a heart's lament, where to begin, where to aim, where to end, and start again, in this mirage, in the realm of thought, why raise these walls, where clarity is caught, meaning shadowed, purity filtered, these expression gallows, where goods are pilfered, the distance grew, as days crawled by, between us two, this me and I.

0



1

beat

1

beat

2

heart beat

3

spread over sky

5

all light and all dark

8

the new clarity, the everything of time, gestalt

13

human arrogance absolved by totality, evil and good, beauty and horror as one

21

can stay in ecstasy forever, but delight is tainted by the shiver of being, the ahead, the beginning, cannot escape time

34

not above, not outside, for a beat spread like oil on still water, a bit of myself touching everything, not quite joining it but poised to, should my nature change, should I be untethered

55

and better, my slick still expanding, the reach of vision yet to ******, the stories, the rub, I drink an elixir of perfect euphoria, I spit the dross of man's burden though a residue remains, an echo of flavor on my tongue, each century a tastebud wet with consciousness, my mind a mouth, masticating experience

89

wonder at the limitless, can I be deceived when I know all truth and can speak eons of knowledge in a word? When I can conceive of every motion an atom's atom can make and every motion thereafter, the every story that grew me to my lofty sojourn among galaxies that I can hold in my light-year hands? What force can challenge me, the ascended begun to break in my throne of stars? I would deign to challenge gods if they were not few, weak and far between

144

play, a heart beat, celebration that I Am, the starlight eyes of grateful souls rejoice. Immortal muse of laughter, my reflection on the glassy sea. An ache I don't remember having passes, an unnamed need is met. Mother berth of reason, whole beget a whole, I saw it all inside a bubble, WHAT eclipsed by KNOW. The tear, the tear, the weeping jest, labor, love, solitary kiss, voluntary shiver. Breadth of color, sound and smell, success, respite, despair. Esoteric afterthought, answers to forgotten questions, illuminate retroscape on which to dance, play, play for all eternity. All is humor, even war, the spent and wasted youth, the murdered and abused, to **** is to set free; suffering yields to bliss at the end of life. Sudden, the limit of exaltation. My hand passes through, I cannot rewrite the rules. I cannot pierce the veil.

89

I knew. Has every peak a valley? asked, answered as My City dimmed its lights. Retreat, retreat, recede, severed synapse secrete silence, destroyed, dead, decay, decrepit, detritus, demon, demon, demon, demon, demon, demon feel the flesh where I hadn't none before, but anguish betrays truth, the reality of right now is pain. Bits crushed by imagination. Frothing alchemy of mud and water, slime and earth combine. Rays beat chapped and charring soil, germinate the mine. Its bend and bow its grave concave rolling man together

55

hag she cackle, ghoul he roar, flit, fly, I tremor, shake, defy. Build me bowels out, I breathe, what lungs have I? Fester unwhole word I strain my grind to cry. Yes, friction, worldly choose, fragments shatter in reverse, Appeasing hunger, dousing flame. Whine of anguish slow subside but I still feel it burn inside

34

oh sweet water, you again, I want to need you, I want to eat, to ****, to die. Enslave, okay free me from this wretched bliss, drain the bottomless ocean and cut short eternity

21

waking rest it wait, soon I walk again. Fear its taste, embrace the waist and kiss the face of chaste

13

human ignorance evolved by fatality, good, evil, beauty, horror each in its way

8

the old blur, the brokenness of my perspective

5

light and dark at war

3

again at war

2

heart beat

1

beat

1

beat

0