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I Am Santo

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They built cities on the sea. They dared the forces of nature to rest. It was foolhardy, but they laid bricks with confidence, bolted steel with hubris and didn’t care how the ache of tomorrow might hobble their endeavor. It was a lot like us, that boldness, that arrogance. Everywhere there were facts and figures […]

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Season’s passed. Seasons past. Left in the vague memory of warmth and calm, a love light flickering weakly in the dark like starfire lost in the firmament of broken hopes. It’s death, this morning of mourning come into afternoon like the inevitable forgetfulness accompanying kindness and care, the taken for granted, the hand left, palm […]

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The threat song undulates like a to-term child in the womb, its definition complete, lyrics like limbs scraping from inside, punching and kicking for birth. Hold it in. That fire and melody, that rhythm of the darkness, the thudding black purge that desires to evacuate, needs escape. Move and sway under new moon struggle, the […]

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It’s all flame and eruption, this dilated cauldron of hurt that brews blood oil, that sticks and lines the insides of the skull, lungs and heart. With each drop of proffered kindness the trajectory is proven wrong, war-swept gales of indifference, expectations and frustration sweeping as if flack in the rain. What destinies would have […]

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Look there, out on the road A cataract view of love Corroded and collapsing with uttered disdain For each gesture made; What a low fool. He stoops, knees bent and worn reducing himself to pinch-measure ego, Self-worth summed in the thin space Between thumb and index. What a pressed fuck. What spineless affability, Tiptoeing on […]

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The church’s bells clanged in the winter air, a flock of sleeping pidgeons roused from their afternoon sleep by the toll of the hour. Rick looked toward the silhouettes of the departing flock and for a moment forgot all about Kathy and her temper. Those birds were free, small hearts rapidly thrumming in time with […]

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When Dawn looked at Matthais, he wouldn’t return her stare. Instead he watched the waves lose small battles against the rocky shore. Like her, the ocean would win someday, but today she was broken; cresting too early and her arguments sliding off Matthais like delicate sea foam. He didn’t want to hear about Martin, named […]

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Awake. Moonlight assaults and cold, so cold and shaking. Maybe from the air. Maybe from the sin of still caring. Carried there to here on the creaking stretcher of consciousness and delivered, sweating, breathing fast into now; horrific now, the creeping, inky unfathomable space of drowning above the surface. Hands pull, never tearing, but crushing […]

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She’s wallowing in accordant sin The magnificent din Of misspent fortune. Drinks lap-spilled and drunk. Bleary-eyed sunrises stung. Lace mesh dilettante hung, Filched climax, lyrics hummed But never sung. She’s come undone. Fingers uncoiled from the last rung. Crying among Ripples of fresh sun Tears return to where she’s from. The lapping waves Dismiss a […]

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Careful. Don’t press this day like a nail underfoot. Watch each step. The pain will relent once the weight shifts, left, on the other leg, away from the sun and its perilous truths that stitch across a bruising sky with short arcs; seams leaking longing. Be mindful. Bring full force down and pain will shred […]

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