a phantom lifestyle imagined by my fevered mind where there would be someone at home who would wish me luck and send me out with a hug and a kiss, and there would be someone to look forward to seeing once
it’s all over

some other lifetime, or some other branch
universe, splitting off from some moment
before I erred and made the wrong choices
before the stars went astray and awry
before the decisions were taken from
my hands

to believe that this was how it was all
meant to turn out—the thought makes my heart ache
my breaths painful to draw—that this was some
unavoidable, inescapable
doom

that God would be so cruel to condemn not
just me, but any soul to so hopeless
so desolate a fate, leaves me tired
aching and weary, my faith tattered and
torn

perhaps my only consolation is
that somewhere in this multiverse there is
a version of me who knows what it is
to be happy