clay earth tones purge the water from my body, perspiring thoughts as the deeds of nature do me in. spinal cords wrap around cliff, boulders, mountains, plains starched red by the belly of the earth regurgitating itself on the stage of an anthill where somewhere, there is a massive hand holding an invisible magnifying glass. over this stage set, i am crawling like a toddler reduced to incoherent goos and gaas. the train trestles rattle with memories of expansion, but the rust belt has disintegrated, and everything is in it’s niche awaiting an apocalyptic tremor, eruption, or storm.

now the only rattles i hear are the rattles of snakes disturbed by the vibrations in the ground caused by my feet. hiding under dislodged tracks, the seep out in a furor, and immediately find a new crevice to lodge themselves in.

the earth rattles seduce children and polarize the picket lines standing outside of clinics in run-down neighborhoods of abandoned ant colonies. jesus, grab the death rattle. rattle on, brother!

different eyes see different sights. twenty different ears hear forty different sounds.

senses are individually tuned to variant translations. the tragedy is not the rattle of death or the sight of dying, but the loss of sense and the attempts at making up for it.

i’ve seen what death does to you. it makes you stronger with your faith in fiction. sorry… strength in conviction. that’s what you say it is. you’re weak, and refuse to concede to your surroundings.

i am ready to die.

paint me a fossil reflected upon and pitied. so i can look at my future.