Semi:
begin with a semicolon, or end
an expectation with it; two incisions
engraved in the sinew of my chest
to look like a road or a pathway
towards some place. I’ve snailed
into it as a prayer vomited from the
stomachs of failed escapes. In another
universe, I wouldn’t have walked into
that path. I would’ve become what
I wanted to be: an existence free from
these burning clouds — basking in
whatever heaven or hell is, if they’re
true. but here I am, still labyrinth and
hell for skin, only that I know there’s
an escape. I spite. I apathy. I semicolon
and every part of me now swims into
poems about prayers and embers &
become amorphous hope. an isotope
of hope where my nightmares have
become a planetarium of dying stars &
I’m one of them; struggling not to blow
up. I become a lyrebird flying against
the against of my self — the world
screams at me and I scream back;
another grudge ripening inside me.