I received my weekly phone call from Lucifer.
He sounded ill, like his throat was full of
sandpaper. I told him he should probably
cut down on the talking and let himself
heal. He let me know how the kids are
doing, and I told him about the storm
that was passing through tonight and
how hopefully nothing would be damaged,
but he told me to accept this as fact.
There are some things one simply cannot
change, he says. Storms and violence.
For example.

What I would do to
feel the warmth of her skin, the
tremble of her touch.

'Binge and purge,' she says,
'It's a self-imposed poison:
hurts no one but me.'

Walking down 17th, I  found a note in a
dumpster—don't ask how these things happen, they just
     do. Things. It read,
Freely run, gentle traveler, but be wary the ground
beneath your feet; it trembles under the immense
weight of your fear.

I took the note and crammed it in my back jean
     pocket, hoping a vibration would soar up my
leg and shake the coarse curve of each letter off
the page and into the air so people stepping on my
     heels might catch a whiff of exactly who they're
dealing with.

This boy, he carries his fear in his back pocket and
     not beating in his chest like a bass drum. I haven't
shaken all the words yet, but every traveler has his day.

Today, tomorrow, yesterday. No, no.
     Not yet.

Spring yielded it's light blue, sending
little spines of fiber-work glass clippings about
and smelling like summer and sun and
reminiscent days long past and gone away.

He, blissful, weary, marched unfettered
amongst the wrecked flora, a hop in his step,
prancing about like someone younger
than he, who had seen little and felt less.

He had an attitude; bumbling, messy,
he was hardly a man for all men, but rather
a stoic symbol of time stood stone still, a
slapdash rendering of a simpler, better era.

Summer gave way to Autumn's yellow chill.
Soon winter stood, watching still and
silent, frigid as the bones in the funeral home.
The seasons painted his headstone. A canvas.

There is blood on the
belly of all living things.
Pity it's so smudged.

‘I set the ******
on fire with a gallon of
petrol. Overkill?’