paraph

The night burns on, all the gods loosed hounds, the wind running wild in the woods. Ice makes its claims, every proportion a number nearer the end. The ache in the back, the pinch between the shoulder blades. The strange revelation of the self dissolving, the chorus full of wires. It is work, this trend in the weather. Cold like the loss of possibility, dark like a secret shared in bed.

Thoughts fall, tousled by unseen forces, tangled in light and shadow. Asleep in the dust, aglow in tides of hunger and television fantasy. Dreams drizzle over you, dusting your flesh with songs of fury and release. The holes worn through your unsettled soul are torn open again and again, wormed through by all manner of odd confluence. Someone mouthing the words of another, someone losing everything but their temporary name.

The blunt force of morning finds its mark, opening again eyes crushed and bruised by the weight of seeing. Old troubles subside as fresh problems wake, the clock and the calendar, the arrow set free into the naked sky. You bend this body until it breaks, then you assemble the shards, standing at attention to whatever flag unfurls. The bright sky and the cold earth. Every kiss bitter, every promise only breath parting lips.