They say I suffer from retrograde cash flow
and it is afflicting me with anterograde anxiety
so they let me go
bleeding money from every pore
leaving a red paper trail behind me

A memetic virus of unprecedented scale
has everyone pale and empty-pocketed
their haunted eyes reflecting
the fear of an exofiduciary reaction

The resultant melancholy
proves infectious.

My sad-sack coworkers,
drained from the same numismatic disease
seek alternative medicine
but I am hooked on the slow copper drip
and wait patiently for the bag to empty before
I even realize I should have
seen another doctor
before
my internet support's been pulled.

the law of large numbers states that
for every action you take
a nearly infinite number of actions remain unfulfilled.
it would take until the heat death of the universe
to uncover all the ways
that you have failed to live up to your potential.
when your mind is choked with regrets,
late at night, wandering your unlit halls,
you are still stuck in contemplation
of less than one hundredth of one tenth of one percent
and of how much more beautiful your life could have been.

i am sorry. you are wrong.

you are the best choice of all possible worlds
because you are the only one
that decided to exist.

out of all the millions and billions and trillions of possibilities.

yours is the only course that coalesced into reality.

the only choice that matters.

The world was closing in
like rough waters overhead.

And as the pressure rose


my heartbeat told me this:




every last gasp is worth fighting for.

They promise breezes cool and clean,
sweet dreams,
sweet cream simm’ring on the stove.

The earth is spinning oh-so-slow,
thinning sunbeams
fading in my shady grove.

A gentle cottage theme, I think,
is best to see them,
and I should know.

When the stars all come alive,
those witching gems,
those wish-giving things,
brilliant, dang’rous, soft as snow,
that is when my body thrives,
when the night around me starts to glow.

She is shadows and soft sighs lit by night;
merriment flitting on her unmarred face.
And as she twirls and sings about in place,
impossibly, I come to know her sight.
Hidden by shapes that shift to her delight
my mind begins to write it all apace,
so in the dark we may keep our embrace
a yearning that we rarely dare incite.
To seek, to find, to grasp and to arrest
those smoky eyes that laugh and look away.

Unsure, my dreams begin to feel half-dressed,
harried by the fleeting losses of youth
as though the lies were not enough to sway
the failure of imagination’s truth.

ice cracks floes turn back
belt loosed, beltway free
pavement hit by ten-ton trucks
storming past swiftly-growing seed

snowmelt sinks
into brittle cement
iron bars, deep years rusted
the bridge might hold another year
if weeds don't grow between the cracks

a crash of thunder
lightning-licked hunger
the earth devours cold hard rain
slapping the ground
like a newly-scorned lover
the warmth of her blushed cheeks bright

like a hesitating twilight

In the days we could not deny,
before the world ground to a halt,
there was a man who said he'd fly,
and choke the earth with blood and salt.

And then he leapt into the sky,
and crashed onto the floor below,
expiring with a gasping sigh,
a life bled dry into the snow.

Then time reversed, 'tried' became 'try.'
The man rose up as though ascended.
He grinned at me and said "I'll fly,"
then leapt once more, soul once more ended.

Then he rose from his bloodied perch,
he said he'd fly and grinned at me,
he dropped as though descending to hell,
and time reversed, and try became tried.

And as the snow absorbed his life,
a sigh escaped that withered frame.
The ground had cracked beneath his weight,
the sky looked down in pity.

Blood and salt spilled onto the Earth,
poured forth like wine from the man who died.
The world at once began to freeze,
the day encased in memory.