(raze interlude)

My brain is a mouth at the edge of the line murmuring the sweet nonsense that keeps us thinking in the days to come we'll all be fine just so long as the sublime end of the new hereafter comes in time to keep us from realizing that what we swallowed was a poisoned pen at best.

And so i keep my eye on the swords sitting idly in the corner of this smoke-filled room. i trace their shadows by my flickering light and wonder if there were ever i time i would pick them up in defense of my ends.

Not that would make so much of a difference. the goddamn things are dull as a nub and weighted all wrong (or so my hapkido queen once told me over meat and ales by a dying fire).

Besides if i've got anything like a fight left in me once these words have fallen, finally, flat then it's in these arms. these short scarred fists. this tattooed, battered pale fucking frame.

Its held it's own, i suppose, before. its taken a beating or two and made it ten years on.

Still, these days, it'd take a hell of a lot more than the end of the world to get me to raise my hands and fight like a man when i can hide much better inside a cowardly tongue.