Shayna Kowalczyk

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playtime

everyone
chatting, all dark & foolish,
bickering about their
other lives — heave the wardrobe onto
its side I shout form a fucking
barricade

there is no
knowing when
they will come
there is no being ready

there is only: this is as
ready as we can get  &  everyone
muttering it’s just a
game, have you never
withheld in your
whole damn life?

when no one
is looking, I slip away:
prise open a window just
to check it works
lock it, pocket the key

I have decided not to die
in the ambush, I died
in it once before and still
remember the hurt
gurgling bitter about my gums

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SHAYNA KOWALCZYK is an Indian-Mauritian-Polish poet and writer from London. Her work has previously appeared in Propel Magazine and she is an alumna of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective 22/23. She is an incoming Trustee at Apples and Snakes.