a blossom
smoke to the ceiling
pieces of skull
everyone should just collapse
run their emptiness into the soil
choke on asphalt

they found a girl whilst trawling the seabed
plastic wrapped round her neck so tightly it tore off her head when they tried to remove it

sometimes oil flows out of our taps and we bathe in death

nobody questions it
nobody questions anything.

This city has become so familiar.
An endless refrain.
Sometimes the sky pulls away.
Sometimes I feel I could slip through the earth and disappear.
Nobody would even notice.

The other day a crowd gathered.
Bunched together as their paths narrowed.
Then fanned back out into space.
It was an endless flow.
Faces moving so fast they blurred into one.
I sat by the river afterwards.
Unable to stand.

There are seven billion people on this earth.
Drifting through themselves.
And everyone around them.

Train.
Cars pass one another.
Smoke.
They cross the road when the lights change.
Living is effortless.
Invisible.

Two of my friends' relatives died this year.
One from suicide.

There are small moments of grace.
That do nothing to stave off death.
Or the unfairness of existence.

I’ve been moving my hands a lot lately.
I’ve been learning to sew.

Sometimes we fall into dreams.
And lose sight of the present.
Because it’s too painful to consider.

The crow recognises itself in the mirror.
Along with everyone else.
And breaks it.

“What happened here?” the girl said. “Why are they dead?”

Silhouettes like stone. Cluttered and flat, eyes staring inwards.

The girl tugged on his sleeve. “Hey.”

He did not reply. Time passed. The girl stared long at him. Black streaks ran like rivers across the city, sweeping emptiness into the earth’s sullen heart.

“The children got away.” He said. He ran his eyes along the horizon. A turgid grey. The beginning of a storm. “Let’s go.”

The girl followed, gripped his sleeve. There, in the alcove above city square, a figure watched them leave.

---

Mist rose in galloping swirls, creeping and bloating and fading. Ferris in the distance. Rust and the dead breath of an age past.

A sinking feeling gripped the girl. An old friend. She began to cry. Small pitiful sobs that echoed across the field.

He bit his tongue and continued.

---

It ran through the crevices of the city, gathering oil and dirt. It ran black down the windows of hollowed houses. Arms reached in. Hallowed memories took them and danced. Fleeting joy erupting into longing. All across the city windows flashed amber, before descending back into austere blue.

The girl cried louder.

Blood dripped from his mouth.

---

Sometimes she would murmur in her sleep. Half-formed words. A soft stream, twined in the ether of dreams.

Sometimes he would remember. A still house, and an immense lack.

---

“This is where we lost,” he said. The girl gazed out. There were hundreds of domed roofs. White, cracked shells, hollowed rooms.

“We?” the girl asked. She picked up a piece of roofing. “We?”

He fingered his coat button.

The rain stung his skin.

---

The district was untouched. Warm amber trickled out of the shops like laughter. There was a joy here that was not ready to leave.

It had grown darker. The sky was suffocated in black pollution. Tears fell from their ankles, trailed lines across the shop floor.

Wooden figures lined the walls, flat eyes staring into nothingness. A thick dust lay upon their heads and shoulders.

The girl stopped in front of a small, child-like figure, palms facing one another, as if cradling a missing object. “This one’s me,” she said quietly.

“And this one’s me,” he replied, sinking to the ground. On the opposite wall lay a nutcracker, rifle pointed to the sky.

---

The streets were howling. Glass shook. Latches twisted and broke.

“It’s begun,” he said without emotion, flesh turned pale. The girl stared at her feet. Slowly, slowly, her legs were filling with stones.

“You did this?” she asked. “You?”

He began to shake. The edges of his body frayed, spun. Dust in a beam, twisted to an invisible tilt. He was falling between himself.

“Why?” she cried. “We were starving. We—”

Thunder bellowed above. Streaks of darkness ran from the sky to the ground. The dead city had nothing left to rot. An emptiness descended and drew the colour from its walls, the smell from its air, the song from their throats.

Unable to speak, she stared at him, horror burning a hole through her chest.

Bodies drifted past the shop window. Limbs, fingers, pointed to the earth, heads turned away. Street lights flickered. Each flash flattened the soldiers, lit their flesh paper white. The city folded inwards. Card-thin walls collapsed in sequence. She felt herself losing definition. Compressing into caricature, insubstance.

He gave a weak smile and held up the missing object.

Palms facing one another, she pulled it to her chest.

The city collapsed.

Black bones. The pages twist. Oxygen runs down the furrows, split the spines. It hurts to look at. White phosphor. Teeth breaking.
I reached my hand in once. Jar of words. Symbols running like a river into the sea. They lose all meaning. Skin wet with breath.
Morning cold or an empty grip. Doesn’t matter.
They used to dance. Shadows running into the heart. Veins tangled. Feet kicking dust.
I’ve been trying to get the words out for awhile now. It hurts the more I try.
Backwards or forwards. Everyone smiles, but the gap grows and grows. We’re progressing, they say; heads rotting hollow. I try to fish them out, but pierce their flesh.
It’s dead now, so they leave.
I used to stare at the stars until they’d burned into my dreams. Ouroboros shaped like a maw. Infinity.
Progress. Human beings. Fingers, throats, airways. Seams of tissue, fibrous joints. I’m sick of humanitarians. Conscious flesh rising into godhood, breaching sanity. Hubris. Stupid words, talking themselves out of existence. Circles in circles. Black crows pecking at mirrors until they break. The animal runs its legs to the ground. Biology. Cells. DNA synthesis. Ligase, unwinding. Atomic emptiness. Split the human. Hiroshima. The enlightenment, a success. Clink of glassware. The president eats burnt flesh.
But none of that matters.
I press the ash between my tips. It feels like fur, collapsing skies. A junction that once was, and now will never be. There is time here. A broken, sad thing. Prisoner of its own flesh, sand in glass. I am lost in this moment. I am disappearing. Breaking like light through a prism.
Why do we even try?

The first attempt ended in nothingness. Ribbons flowed from the belly of mother hollow, and though they grasped at their own absence, their fingers broke like brittle leaves, returning to the mother’s flesh.
This was the birth of change.
The second attempt ended in madness. Shadows rose out of the nothingness in waves and cascaded into pools of being, but when being opened its eyes and saw its image, it let out a threshing scream.
This was the birth of separation.
The third attempt ended in lack. Fire poured from the cosmic maw and baked earth to blood; flesh gorged on itself, and pale figures gripped the edges of rivers, gaping at one another, unable to speak.
This was the birth of despair.
The last attempt ended in man; and nothing birthed after it.


Appended File

Source states the archaeologist was investigating the Mariana Trench. Strangely, he began displaying symptoms of decompression sickness on the descent. His state worsened, but, due to his insistence, the pilot continued the mission. The archaeologist began recounting, in “muddled and broken speech”, accounts of his wife and children. In interviews conducted after the incident, colleagues claim to have never met any persons matching such descriptions. Soon after, the archaeologist collapsed. The pilot recounts, in a shaken tone, “By all means he was out. Like—I called to him, you know.” When asked why he did not administer first aid, the pilot replied “I couldn’t st—he was out cold, I ******* swear. I didn’t notice it at first, moving my hand over his face, you know—staring into space. I grabbed the kit, turned back, and that’s when it hit me. His eyes weren’t glazed, they were fixed on me. Tracking me. Like—those weren’t his eyes, anymore.” When asked to expand on this, the pilot broke down and had to be escorted from the room. The archaeologist has yet to awaken from his coma. It should be noted his eyes are closed.

— 37, Male. Cairo, Egypt.

Today I saw the edges of my self
fraying in the wind.
I saw leaves
split their veins against autumn fire.
I saw the departed
gather at convenience stores
and speak their regrets into the pavement.
I tried to join in
but couldn’t voice a thing.

Sometimes we bleed
disarticulate through our flesh
**** without purpose.

I am sempiternal today
but not tomorrow.

Rain soaks the ceiling
Falls into the air like crashing jets
Black red white

Smoke collapses
Children break their teeth
The earth screams

They touch their tongues
It’s a sign of affection
Like oil
Or maybe kerosene
Some time later
The streets cover with ash

I try to speak