14

weeping as the willow does:
constant.
unapologetic.

it never ends,
it never ends,
it never ends.

the scars down your left arm
allow even strangers in
to see the places where you've been.

this window always open
to your little world
your sad little world

and open all it can be
for it has been unhinged
its pane shattered.

an empty frame is all that's left
and all you'll ever be
to anyone
anywhere
fits within it.

5

There was a lonely upholstered chair in the corner and it faced only the empty room. Hard wood floors scratched and scuffed all over by legs of furniture long gone and sneakers, the wearers of which had long since vacated the house. He’d come here to grow up. He’d come here to die. He wouldn’t have told anyone this but he would have been lying to say otherwise.
It wasn’t about giving up on dreams, it was about getting away from nightmares. In this twilight he couldn’t see much of a difference in the two. Pride had all but vanished over the years and he’d resigned himself to its not coming back. He’d resigned himself to a great many things like that and was convinced he was at peace with them all.

This was the only kind of peace he’d ever know.

13

I’ve always got this feeling like something’s undone. I’m on the edge of my seat holding my breath and I’m missing out on precious oxygen, like there’s something I’ve just gotta do before I can do anything else but I don’t know what it is. So I can’t do anything at all. This has been going on for years.

8

There was a jackalope in the corner. It kept looking at him. He’d have time to consider this later.

10

It had always been his ambition to try everything once and let it go before it lost its appeal. He tried religion once and once was enough. God didn't listen and God didn't talk back. He tried philosophy once and that was enough. Enlightenment never found him and he never found it. He tried heroin once and heroin gave him everything. He tried heroin again and he gave heroin everything. When it lost its appeal he didn't notice and when he looked for something else he found nothing else was there anymore.

7

You only get one lapse. Usually it’s when you’re too young to have any idea what you’re doing, and you get so fucked up that you won’t remember what it felt like, what drove you to it, or how you felt before it. Afterward your entire life is spent in recovery and any time you sink it’s not a lapse anymore, it’s a relapse. I wonder what it’s like to go through life without ever sinking…?

4

Even clocks lose track of time. We don’t blame them. It’s something of a joke; how dependent we are on these mechanical monsters ticking our lives away: fingerless hands that choke the breath out of us one second at a time. We invented these gears and all they imply… just to let them wear us down, beat our will out of us and we lose ourselves in their perpetual motion. It’s all crazy, it’s all false, and it’s all we’ll ever have.