Tales-of-Tao

i am a ghost town crumbled into might-have's between the halves of then and history. please keep haunting me.

autumn sinks into an ocean a millimeter deep, and capped with golden butterfly wings paper-thin and fake. when the scales of my wings molder at your touch, will i still be loved?

just write, they said but all i can do is beg bending at the waist scrawling on the floor no more, please God no more life is living too hard for these fingernails broken-down and rotting in the wood but what's a mess of twisting entrails, connect-the-dot emotions and bunsen burnt brain chemicals to do?

from sand castles to starry constellations and the grass and grit between (our bared toes), you and i have walked without moving, really. i can still look back and count the miles(tones) and beats: heart-in-hand-in-hand closer (farther?) together (away?) (where are you going?) our friendship is distance, nearness, what we make of those miles.

i am nothing more than this serotonin-starved dopamine disaster. my oxytocin is overwhelmed with winter's frost, its faded fondness reached recession seven years ago. i remember wretched weeping, dry-eyed as i discovered that my own brain had betrayed me; it never taught me how to love. my heart is something seasonal, and i'm so sorry, darling.

to you who kisses sadness right on the lips, no tongue, no promises, please stop sighing. look at me, look at you instead.

            “At my age, there’s only so much you can do.”            You say that every time I visit, hands pressed unconsciously against the backs of your hips. They’re purpled and thin, those hands; the skin stretching over your knuckle bones is thinner than college grade paper, and when you greet me with a hug, I feel as though I’m holding a history book. Still, as you lead me through the wall-less line between living room and dining room, your steps are steady and unaided by any walker.              You are a little woman living in a little house, and the town we share isn’t that large either. As the

             I’m still not sure how magic came into the conversation over our coffee break, but it managed somehow. It wasn’t so much an unexpected guest brashly deciding to drag a third wicker chair into the middle of our morning; rather, magic entered as an overly-attentive waiter who was clearly aiming for a 20% tip. Little amenities became ours at the tilt of a brow, at the turn of a minute desire. Jonathon’s Frappuccino (butterbeer, with lots of cream) came frothing back up to the brim every time he emptied it—there was never any less cream, either. As for me, my muffin was making faces at the napkin; I was snicke

    Water-stained light was starting to seep across the flat rooftops, but her eyes were on the trees. Dead and twisted, they stretched like skeletal spines against the sunrise. As sweat stung against her eyelids, the runner found herself wondering how long the maples had persisted in gasping for air. Had they grown faster then? Clawing desperate fingers towards the malicious sky, they must have clung to life until the last shreds of leafy flesh had been torn from their bones. Or perhaps all trees died standing up, yielding their spirits to the poison winds of this ruined world, leaving carcass woodlands as a painful reminder to those who sti