Lose the way, then find it. Escape the gravity of old ties, dead meanings, escape— become a new star in the sky. Arc, falter, fall to earth. Land in a ritual ring. Gift for a mute priestess. What sign, your arrival? She swallows oracle bones and gives birth to meaning. Speaks it sings it. New again. A painted grimace, still smoldering from starfall, the crash through miles of air. Blackened, amnesiac, embryonic, steeping in ancient spell-music. You are woven into long thread, tugged by ancestors, unseen allies, stretched across the loom so new colors can slip in: crimson round the coiled guts, royal purple through the ribcage. The way loses you, then finds you new. As for the minor hell of loss that jabs you from inside: wait and listen. Listen and wait. Time bomb, music box, sigil-bound seed An unmaking born from years of need. ___ *May 2021*