Cast the bones and find your fate
written in the slant of femur, the scatter of vertebrae,
the elegant curve of an ancestor’s rib.
These bones, once white,
now stained with the salt of your sweat,
scarred with scratches of your fingernails
as you scrabble and grasp and cast the bones
again and again
seeking every divergent path of possibility
wondering why each one coils like a noose around your neck.
Maybe these bones were meant to stay buried,
maybe this knowledge was better left unknown
but your hunger for truth is carnivorous—
like a jackal caught in a trap, you’d sooner
chew off your own leg than starve.
But even if you eat yourself alive,
you’ll still be held captive
by the casting of the bones.
BIO: Gabriela Avelino is a writer with a passion for night skies and rainy days. Her work has been previously published in Flash Fiction Magazine and is forthcoming from Solarpunk Magazine. When she isn’t writing, she can be found sketching, dreaming, and walking through the woods. Find her online at https://www.avelinothewriter.com/.