my friend and i were walking through the woods one hot summer day i had just gotten new shoes and as he walked in the creek i stayed ten feet above him going through the trees because i knew what would happen if i got my shoes all muddy i remember exactly when the tree […]

a friendaskedme to writean introductionfor his newcollectionof shortfictionand as iscribbled mythoughts onhis writingand on ourfriendshipit beganto feel asif i werewriting hiseulogy insteadof sellingthe readeron his words in my macabremindset ibegan toeulogize myselfa goddamned foolwho gives pastthe point oftotal embarrassmentunrelentingin his pursuitof what doesn’twant anythingto do with himspilling himselfinto the ætherincessantly tothe verge ofbecoming a parodymaking […]

i despise my delicate nature easily bruised a faint breeze leaves me shattered all i can do is lash out in my petulance airing every ache skinless in the storm of salty tears so filled with the golden glow of untarnished emotion the beauty of which i cannot capture as it seers my insolent tongue […]

the mourning routine remains unchanged a pot of adderall to wash down the bitter brown coffee as i read the news of the last evening tapping the same apps hoping for a new spin on the old insanity half an hour pleading with the universe for a deviation off this accursed loneliness as i get […]

occasionally i find myself on a web sitting quite still as is my peculiar nature feeling the vibrations of alien interpersonal connections run beneath my curiously awkward perch i make myself as small as i can to not disturb the buzzing semivoyeuristic afraid if i become to active a tidal wave of my madness will […]

the bells of the chapel played a happy song and i wished you were there as the melody rang out holding my hand

the delivery driver got lost an hour past his arrival time i still sit in a lbrary without books wasting my day despite my best attempts to stay busy enough to avoid having to spend any time in my own head the universe itself conspires to bring about my downfall so i sit here watching […]

the current of the lazy river pulls my body slowly forward the sunlight filters through the canopy in a display of dancing shadows a secret missive from the trees themselves in coded flashes over my eyelids as i struggle to wake myself before the liquid fills my shriveled lungs well aware in my unconscious state […]

i leak emotions into the æther as i drag the razor across my mind unable to let wounds heal when the pain is all i can process as the loss is more pronounced each day i am tired of doggedly putting one foot in front of the other when the only reward is scars in […]

airplanes rumble to break the stillness of the evening the occasional high rev of a motorcycle the faint clang of the wind chimes dances in the darkness where i sit nursing a headache and the insomnial delusion maybe tonight will bring some sleep i wish i were on one of those planes headed anywhere but […]

the birds are excitedly singing this morning a high pitched squall in layered discordant notes fingernails down a chalkboard as everything feels brittle to a sleep addled fool the rumble of circling planes halts the choir of fluffy little former dinosaurs with hollow bones flitting about on the porch railing as they taunt me while […]

the words were intangible today i cast my net and came back with nothing except these circular incisions and this manic malaise this is when the stories reveal themselves when writing becomes nigh herculean yet my obsessive demands that every single day i write because legacies do not build themselves and i have been okay […]

a quiet clatterof coffee percolatingsoft bird songunder yellowtinted blue skiesa semipermanentbank of pollutionrefracting thenascent sunlightover a sleepy citya kaleidoscope oflatent poisons inslow suffocationas the first weekof the fresh calendarfades into the past i sitcalm and thoroughlyunpreparedto meet the daya bipplar bardfluctuatingto and frowith no controlover the oscillationin chemical delugethe carcinogenichazel dispersion ina funeral shroudof anxiety

the air is thick with smoke my head still vibrates from the firetruck that idled just outside my window i was jittery all day as the mania replaced the anxiety the pendulous swing taking me from the sky is falling into individual atoms pulsing in a chaotic array i am moving at the speed of […]

i don’t know if it is a result of my childhood or just a gift from low self esteem but my willingness to accept fault for other’s actions is a crippling effect of what i assume is a matyr complex i let people treat me like shit and joyfully stay where i am not wanted […]

the problem with a need for total control over every situation is it leads to a false sense of being the only one whose opinion matters when things deviate from the expected it has a tendency to make those suddenly in chaos shut down i have ny own terminal tendencies as i leave everything to […]

the kids are about to leave and all three of us vibrate with anxiety as the bubble the last week and a half sheltering us from the real world quivers as the thin semipermeable membrane is at the verge of popping they return to school and the stress of rubberbanding back to reality i lose […]

the turn signalat campbellgoing to coitis liekly theshortest lightin the metroplexfor such a busyintersectiona brief interchangeleading to carssitting throughfive changes ofgreen to redbefore being lessthan halfwaythrough to seeit shift to yellowonce more strandingangry faces forthe next cycle i osscilate atthe same frequencymy patiencegrown as swiftas this malevolentgatekeeper holdingthe throngs ofimpatient drivershostage as theystare at theseven […]

it becomes impossible to give when it is clear you have no inherent value when every word is dissected reconfigured and made into a weapon but you wield nothing and all the cuts are self inflicted when you beg for the only thing that can fix things just to realize you’re the only one trying […]

a subtle symphony of discordant supplication a diaphonous susurrous of sullen surrender serenaded in the pleading beat of cardiac palpations guiding the starlight in shimmering waves of trepidation to wash away the clamoring sway of sweet dreams with the frantically swishing staccato of sorrowful soulshatter suturing trembling lips to cease the flow of insipid sighs […]

life is a solitary endeavor broken briefly by occasional intersections crashing into another becoming something more before fading dreamembers dying in the long nights alone i watch a traffic cop in the middle of the street limiting my interactions for fear of causing an accident and stopping the flow of traffic in all directions part […]

my irrational sentimentality keeps me hanging out where i am clearly unwanted a jug of milk curdled in the back of the fridge that needs to be thrown out but there is alaways a reason to put it off until tomorrow overstaying my welcome like a splinter barely noticed until the full infection sets in […]

i walk each morning through this garden of withered grayed stalks a wintry reminder death must come before rebirth and we are dying with each painful breath stuck in this false spring where the birds sing of green knowing another cold snap is surely coming but i see the facade with forced open eyes and […]

the idea of sleeping in the embrace of the undulating dreamless abyss only to be ripped free and forced into a new squalling infant form to relearn what it is to suffer through life once more terrifies me a perpetual cycle of reincarnation bound to this mortal coil with no chance of escape spun out […]

it’s eleven thirty on new year’s eve and i am laying here staring at the ceiling doing my best to pretend the things that bother me actually do not a fool’s quest for blissful ignorance as the clock ticks ever nearer to twelve i used to celebrate get hammered with friends ring in the new […]

it’s sunny as if even the universe itself in its ever expanding negligence celebrates the demise of this year of utter abandonment as if this eventually all consuming blot at the center of this wobbling trailer park of a solar system gives two fucks if the pervasive sense of a full foreclosure of hope ticks […]

a former coworker was at the same location yesterday and as he walked past me i was asked if i remembered him i stared at the head of silver hair the gut hanging over his belt and could not recognize the face now hidden in lines it had been over ten years since we had […]

overwhelmed by this petulant haze of lackadaisical lethargy unable to find a reason to accomplish anything at all as the morning chill burns off and i sit alone in a parking lot unwilling to make a move the crushing weight of hopelessness as i curl up into a ball inside this faulty shell ignoring the […]

the funeral pyre threatens to blot out the sun as the gathered detritus of hooes shattered throughout the dying year stabs the horizon with dreamsplinters that pierce the vacant dissipation of god’s bored penumbra listlessly swatting away the earnest pleas from voices long ignored by divinity angelic tears in molotov kisses flicker with a sullen […]

i dislike service calls in hospitals the sterility in filth bright lights amplify every secret flaw an exposure in illnesses as overworked faces greet agonized souls in barometric disaster of inclement death it feeds the butcher shop in my haunted mind with images and invisible threats as i keep my head down and try to […]

a stark refusal to accept the clouded truth a terminal need to clear the air rather than let inferred actions settle as fact a consistent push for villification instead of seeing both angles to find the mythical middle in which reality nestles violently the human condition is a myopic illusion where intentions are fluid dependent […]

she was from des moines or maybe dubuque it was iowa so that meant pig ass or rows of corn for feed or high fructose corn syrup and either or was certainly bad for the heart there was this hint of trouble behind that wide midwestern smile a sign of smoke in her beguiling easy […]

the windows deform as the winds assault everything that dares defy its invisible endless wrath melted silica in crystalline rigidity in a wobble high over the streets filled with the vacant eyes incomprehending just how close they are to glass raining down from the thirtieth floor i was flawed in my tempering unable to handle […]

the tempo matches the traffic a few minutes of racing a slow backbeat at the lights dissociation by association pulled from the chaos the sheer absurdity by an algorithm that electronically matches the overtly complicated complicit world of nonbinary relapses the ones and zeros balance out the insanity of organic idiocy a symphony of disharmonics […]

every two hours i roll over spend five minutes muttering to myself silently another twenty lost in thought recycling the day trying to find the words that escaped me during the install when my hands were too busy to scribble catching fragments of those figments before slipping back into a new fit of troubled sleep […]

i am in one of my death spirals where i see the loops recognize the cycle and yet am powerless to pull free it is maddening knowing it is reoccurring that this is my normal spin yet being trapped i am nauseous from chasing my tail and the anxiety is mounting to a fresh wave […]

after a long year of consistently lowering expectations the last page of the calendar seems a fitting tinder for striking the fire to consume the next in a maelstrom of unbridled desires long left neglected no longer hiding in a kingdom of ash fearing failure until the fear of attempting became all consuming settling for […]

the gray dissipated as the holiday ended winter retreated petulantly to regroup for a second assault in the new year as texas thaws indifferent or rather aloof a no man’s land in seasonal differential a false autumn in between blustery polar dissent the trees as yet to shed foliage smugly stand tall among nude neighbors […]

newton insisted time continues to pass as a constant while einstein argued it was more a relative passage which would explain how fresh pain seems to last an eternity and yet time still flows time is a cage in which temporary beings seek to inflict order upon chaos governing even the most microscopic changes with […]

there must be a miracle drug to ease this overwhelming anxiety bubbling in acidic groans throughout my meat prison. none of the other drugs seem to erase the edge. or maybe this is what it is to be human a condition of inescapable horror leading to death with brief moments where things make a modicum […]

i hope the three spirits visit me this evening i need some self help tips on obtaining the spirit of christmas and let’s face it my people skills are tragic and that’s being overly kind curious to spend another sleepless evening revisiting my past and over analyzing each and every misstep or fretting over this […]

i am filling this pervasive void with music with poetry any self serving sense of distraction from being alone with my thoughts sealing up the insistent whispers with wax until the inside of my skull is a honeycomb leaking poison rather than the biblical flood of easily triggered abandonments saturating my soul the cold has […]

i am a goddamned mute trying frantically to speak yet not a single peep disturbs the silence draped over my tongue a funeral shroud of bitterness flapping over this frozen texan hell

i have a knack for finding a logical reason that stands up to scrutiny to explain my irrational need to hide my ingrained fear of failure along with a predilection for anxiety give me a near superpower in justification and so i hide ignoring the petty nagging cuts giving my peace of mind willingly to […]

winter is an emaciated old wolf howling snarling teeth bared just outside the door as another storm of the century lays waste to holiday decorations as they blow across the empty highway i watch it shivering on the couch wishing for a pot of coffee dressed in layers and flinching each time the heat kicks […]

like drinking orange juice after a two day fast how the acid begins churning rising until a whiff of hades tickles the back of your throat a burning pit consumes your internal organs blackened bones and embers in the ash glowing nothing seems to distract me from the swirling cosmos of chaotic malaise not the […]

loss is intangible smokey particulates everywhere yet wraps around my chest with the weight a dwarf star crushing me into dust perhaps i am inhaling my own fetid remains on another of my journeys through the tartarus of a rancid soul a single minded misery machine who picks scabs in the long dark silence of […]

all night i tried to write and the words fell from the hole in my center to tumble listlessly onto the floor in a pile of squirming illegibility. i am emptynulldevoid a walking enigma of negative worth incapable of beauty. or maybe it’s just a bad night. i can’t seem to tell the difference any […]

the solsticeis quite aproposthe longest nightmatching mydark nimbusas depressioncolors my world i should beused to the variedshades of darknessthese huesmy fracturedsense of selfshines effortlesslyin the hollowsof my mindevery random arcin miswiredsynapses sendinghigh voltagein convulsivelyrigorous sadness i blackoutall the windowswith brushes dippedin the sins leakingfrom the lesionsmarring my lightbereft soul we raceever faster towardan endingsome of […]

i get lost in my agonies fireflies sounding off in explosions just under my papery flesh so easily torn by these foreign intruders lumps squirming larva growing in the fibers of aching muscles as i decipher the lights dully gleaming a hidden missive from the universe or god mocking me either or i sit with […]

the difference between deified and deicide is a matter of what you have done for someone else lately a constantly fluctuating goal impossible to ever maintain

no more willful blindness facing forward with open eyes and an acceptance somethings are beyond our control when you express a desire to be seen and valued that suddenly you become the villain it isn’t you that is the problem despite what you are made to believe don’t ignore the sudden opportune timing of your […]

words can be twisted contorted until what was actually said becomes a sick parody with a whole new meaning far removed from what was actually said like playing the old game telephone where one person whispers a word and by the end of the line it has become something else entirely removed from the original […]

parts of us die when we suffer abuse and we often are forced to question if we survived or if we simply became monsters as well the dead bits never truly go away but they linger reminding us what was irrevocably irreversibly taken away and in those spaces scars grow until all that is left […]

i am nothing more than a vaguely human shaped san andreas shaking with anxiety as i find everything is my fault as the world quakes around me it is easy to blame me i will always shoulder all of the guilt whether or not i am responsible because one of the quirks in being broken […]

i blame it on the rain my inability to see clearly is the precipitation not the barely restrained tears the cold wind stinging my face as the frost forms in my beard not the agony in my chest but axial tilt pushing me farther from the sun in eacapable avarice for the warmth taken away […]

i can’t keep the plates spinning balancing my own failing mental health with the stresses mounting around me curling up tighter and tighter into myself with no armor to shield my tender catastrophe from a world at the brink of destruction where all i need is barely enough but more than what dreams can manage […]

slipping in and out of dissociation i have forgotten how to form words with this tongue i am uncertain is mine the heaviness that accompanies this depression pins my form to the page a butterfly frozen in midflap blue fingertips tracing the frost on the window as the sun refracts off the snow the sparrows […]

wasted away the entire day too anxious to concentrate everything just felt off only for the lack of production to trigger even more anxiety because i just fucking wasted the entire day and now it is too late to try and get something started with this magma in my guts and sleep is not on […]

it’s cold in the apartment in a hoodie and a beanie shivering under a gray blanket waiting until next weekend for the kids to turn on the heat rather than waste money on electricity for simple comfort rationing coffee stretching out rice and beans so i can avoid going anywhere as the depression leaves my […]

i have put up a good fight trying to keep from falling into the abyss gently caressing my tired cheeks i could feel it swirling ever closer when my eyes opened and i slid out of bed and into a hot shower hoping to fool myself into feeling some sort of contact besides the tendrils […]

in an embarrassment of ingrained issues feeling as if i do not truly exist is the one i struggle against the hardest and it is the one in which i was thrust at a time when falling to pieces was already culminating profusely i used to daydream about being saved from the events that broke […]

tangled in webs invisible strands wrapping tighter cannot breathe no movements except frantic struggles as the silk grows thicker blocking out the faint light just occasional twitching in the last spasms before oblivion sings a lullabye calling eternity in all of its empty adoration

i stitch each night with coarse black thread my mouth shut in sloppy x’s before going to lay in bed the muffled screams make a lovely accompaniment to staring up at the ceiling for hours and hours on end my fingers are cramped from threading the hooked needle my lips ache from the many holes […]

despite the best laid plans obstacle after obstacle has this job in a perpetual haze of hurry up and wait a blur of activity followed by sitting as the fire alarm blares or the power goes off or the assistance that’s required doesn’t call back the expectation of an easy job overtly complicated by incessant […]

the weather turned seasonal overnight the trees seem conflicted the verdancy draining as the last of the leaves have decided to change into a late autumnal canopy of falling reds each day as i arrive another has given in unwilling to accept it should be winter i wish i didn’t see such a stark correlation […]

day four of this incessant ache clustered in my skull consistent bad enough that i try to sleep yet lay with it scraping a layer between awake and trapped in half dream where everything is just out of reach as i lay there staring at the fucking ceiling a solitary nerve ending held to a […]

my eyeballs detached popped free of my skull two floating jellyfish in hazel hued madness swimming about the car as i sit still in the lingering nightmares of another abandonment my kelp fingers slid sinuously around the steering wheel as my hwrmit crab heart left searching for a better chest cavity in which to hide […]

i hear her my upstairs neighbor sobbing sobbing sobbing broken only momentarily when i sneeze or cough a rhythmic surrender after last night and the screaming he cheated (she thinks) and after three hours of circular yelling the door slammed shook the frames on my wall and knocked the dry erase markers onto the floor […]

next year i am supposed to go to virginia for a convention supposed to walk around among the writers while pretending that i belong it is such a scheme scribbling stories the same as everyone else yet expecting lightning to strike and the right person to comb through the overburdened shelves find your book spread […]

i surfed through clusters of frantic storms the melon hued sky misleading in vibrancy unrestrained each new burst igniting a flare of red as the turgid swarm of insolent fireflies panicked at the downfall of dismalities i drive with a tarnished crucifix in a steady deluge of drowning dreamers cast down convulsively by a dismissive […]

the clouds above dead static in an ode to forevers undreamt sickly purple of a week old bruise god’s divine hematoma reflected in refraction of pulmonary devotionals in muted dejections a funeral a wedding a death bed confessional of first kisses squandered a symposium on natural reactions to mythical mysticisms as taught by madmen and […]

i struggle most of my days feeling as if i am a pox unworthy of the love i have craved since it was denied from a very young age trying my best in a bipolar reverberation yet failing in expressing my feelings in a way that shows just how deeply each emotion shines coming off […]

this week is going to be a grind big installation across the city with a coworker who has developed an attitude in addition to having this sorrowful pulse from cardial shattering as the chimes sound out a mournful tale of cold winds blowing the coffee does little thos stygian brew of caffeinated darkness swirls bitternesss […]

sundays are always my least favorite night the day is great the kids bring a light that is quickly extinguished the moment the door shuts and the silence reasserts its dominance over my depression with a gleeful swarming the fucking holidays are right around the corner and the loneliness threatens to end me all i […]

anxiety forces my struggling heart to pump the sludge of unhappiness through brittle veins an acidic ooze caiterizing hope in a tangle of scarred remembrance the bad end of yet another cycle where depression is a constant state every word is wrong none of the feelings can be trusted and i fear this is just […]

i am content to ride the ocean of fathomless emotion the hyperbolic flow of bipolar extremes knowing the danger but giving every heartspasm to my beacons of stability the lodestones in my shattered soul that guide me home tethered to the sea seeking to drown me my thoughts are unruly chaotic sparks burning my mind […]

i wonder if the thunderous beat of my heart rattles windows of the cars i pass as badly as my pulse seems to rattle my brain against the jagged ivory of my skull i set off alarms in the slow descent through concrete slopes deeper under the city lights flicker as the ballasts sway precariously […]

i exist somewhere between the falling raindrops out of step with the world a phantom intangible as life goes on all around me watching as busy people pass through me a tender surrender of inconsequential need in cold waves and i fear falling down plummeting through the ground itself to drift alone in the spaces […]

i do it to myself the world shits on me i don’t exist and i sit and read bukowski and nod or friedrich rambles in his mad way doing nothing except confirming the feelings i went to read and try to forget about for a few moments but then i am pissed hank snaps and […]

bob mould sings about everything falling apart in a two minute burst of midwest angst that sums up the wicker armor haphazardly constructed around my fractured misconception of accepting all the blame for slights i wasn’t even aware existed i feel as if i am little more than a piece of anthropomorphic trash floating alongside […]

human nature dictates an unnatural need to put themselves ahead of the rest of the faceless herd i see it daily as they scoot along trying to cut in at the last moment frantic to be three car lengths farther in the stagnant traffic pushing towards the end of the lane so clearly marked for […]

every two hours i woke up and repositioned the pillows as the embers of the last dream sizzled gently hoping to find a single moment more of sleep before rising and tossing the nets into the choppy water in hopes of straining enough of the words to manage a poem or three and still have […]

i am lost roaming these nonsensical pathways of an escher fever dream disregarding laws of physics as the illusion of freedom sheds itself while i clutch at the shifting stairways that lead manically into the night the horizon looms ever out of reach despite the impossible angles projected in this absurdity forcibly replacing the lies […]

the cold moon hides in frigid disdain obscured lunacy of reverential malaise gradual disavowment leaving flecks of celestial disenchantment in sanguine surrender forming a nimbus in penumbra repugnance distorting dismay sixtysixhundred devotional hymnals ashes drifting in a plastic bubble diaroma of discontent the stagnancy of irrational irrelevance a dull blade tracing an insolence of disregarded […]

the sky pisses rain horns blare i am lost between the swishing blades displacing dirt and fat drops ever falling. brake lights a sea of angry red festively glaring as the traffic swells along the overpass. arterial plaque dancing in the muscular atrophy of a congested cardial illusion seeking to break free and cause the […]

i try to etch all of the confusion the sorrow the anger the need the desire the love the fear the madness the wonder the hope the angst the loss into the æther yet all i manage is hollow prose childlike sketches of chuldhood scars rough approximations of clinging scabs as i bash my head […]

when did i become so much older than i think i was meant to grow? somewhere in the intoxicating haze of hot passions and frigid silences the years continued to accumulate as i was preoccupied by the beauty around me. giving up all of the best years i had chasing someone else’s dreams and abiding […]

the straw that finally broke the camel’s back must have been someone else’s expectation that left the poor beast of burden paralyzed in the billowing sands the things left unspoken yet are assumed to be known deal far more hurt in the open chasm of silence widening to tear things apart

the man in the bright neon vest with his electric leaf blower does his best sisyphus imitation as the trees all around him let loose a blizzard of yellow leaves with every wrrant breeze and passing vehicle to fall where he ineffectually has just aimed his plastic armament of detritus displacement there is a lesson […]

the coffee brews a percolating cacophony in the silent morning threatening to wake the petulant sun stretching just beyond the eastern horizon i forgot what it was to have this broken sleep after a month of fevers and ten hour dream loops with brief moments of panicked flailing for half drowned wet gasps trading in […]

it has been so long since i felt like myself that i can’t help but question if this is really who i once was or what i have become after being detached from the fragmented shards of my elusive delusionary soulscattered regrets my skin is unfamiliar as i roam about underground in concrete caverns with […]

there is a howling sounding in my guts an insatiable growling beast demanding more sustenance as it hunts angrily prowling through the hollow depths for a blood drenched feast to stave off this self imposed famine of need snapping and biting claw prints carved in the dew soaked grass beneath the silver sliver of lunar […]

hushed silence in nihilist whispers broad strokes emotional resonance metaphor for dream a heavy sigh of acceptance as the poet realizes he will most surely die on a pile of unread manuscripts broken hearted and certainly all alone the whiteboard is filled with ideas the insidious haze in my cavernous skull will likely never scribble […]

stardust shimmersdead skin cells hoverin a dust devil ofdiscarded detritusa terminus of tattereddreamthistle driftinglazily in the sallowsunlight filteredthrough the dirty windowscascading shadows ofmyopic dysmorphiascatching fleeting glancesat the stranger staringthrough toothpaste streaksfrom the other side ofthe bathroom mirror i am more thanthe sum of scar tissueand lingering regretsan anomaly ofelectrical surgesin hyperbolic dissentand in this stormi […]

the skies above passively aggressive in shades of gray cast dispersions upon the dying week the sad realization of self unimportance as the sidewalk chalk swirls in spiralled demises to taint the water table and the bloated daydreamers float facedown in an obstructionist act of redactive wonder does little more than sully the beliefs of […]

my hands shake whether from the chill pervading the room or the anxiety in adrenalized spikes stabbing down my spine making this fundamentally flawed house of cards i seek sanctuary within less a shelter than a lesson in incompetency from a failed architect trying too hard to hide his scarred topographic map of dire depression […]

life has felt eerily similar to a car crash filmed in black and white a silent film of distorted pains with nary a whimper to differentiate the scene breaks as black blood pools in solemn waves slowly consuming the intrepid fool in a liquefication of obsidian disasters the film stretches flame spreads across metal canisters […]

i dream scratching across the vellum of night a dull pencil wood scraping faint graphite creasing eternity in an impotent display of loss my only true contribution to art a vague smudge on the edge of a canvas housing flawed masterpieces in half coagulated remorseful scabs as i rage fitfully in a bipolar malaise pollock […]

a purification of sin in sweet self immolation beneath the interlocking brasswork teeth of god sending entropic slivers in a blizzard of molten reverberations to bathe the chemically deluded with a torrent of pain nauseated from spinning against the turbulent tides the undertones of undertows grasping at flailing limbs in a frozen symphony of sympathetic […]