1	Deepdark »
They're all gone, the brine-soak says, dissolving the bond between the vowels and the consonants. The curves become fluid, and the hard lines melt into a smear of pickled darkness . . .
2	Missing »
It draws me, a hint of a moth to a hint of a flame. It is a glass canister, with metal stoppers and a series of trailing cords like the delicate strands of a jellyfish . . .
3	Bare »
I cannot touch my head. My hands are nothing more than ghost fingers on the end of phantasmal limbs. I flail, and touch nothing . . .
4	Last Light »
I drink the brine of dissolved books, gulping and choking like a castaway alcoholic who finds a casket of rum half-buried in the sand of his island exile. It isn't enough that my lungs are filled with the stuff . . .
5	Projection »
Clustered around the table, eight with a spot left for a ninth. Light from naked candles, pinpricks in the slithering gloom. Whispers now, voices low and hushed. Is he here? . . .
6	Ego »
His breathing slows, each inhalation more brief than the last. He slips out of time, out of phase with the world, and watches the light die. Just one more. Just one . . .
7	Circle »
My crown is gone. Severed by a stroke of lightning. My brain is exposed to the torrential downpour of black tears. My brain is coated by the ash of burnblack feathers . . .
8	Son »
Who are you waiting for? Who are you expecting? . . .
9	Father »
I have not abandoned you. I have not forgotten you. You have always been a part of me, just as I have always been inside of you . . .
10	Programming »
Failure is part of your programming, my son. I wrote the code. I can unravel your ladder and show you where the systemic faults are written . . .
11	Petals »
Count the petals. Why are there twenty-three? Is the world not symmetrical? Is the world not ordered in a series of twisted pairs? . . .
12	Fealty »
Embrace me, my child. I have so much to show you. I have so much to give . . .
13	Love »
She loves me she loves me not she loves me she loves me not . . .
14	Descent »
His words become meaningless now, an empyrean thunder of falling masonry. Tumble down tumble down . . .
15	Fear of Drowning »
His headless skeleton presses against me, bent ribs digging into my back. His pelvic bone bangs against my hip, and his cracked toes scratch at my ankle and calf . . . [art]