_edited.jpg){kind=small}
nothing burns for me—
C.C. Apap
no angel has stayed my hand.
never have I been told to count
the stars of the sky or grains
of sand. I speak in metaphor
only on the page, and never
as prophecy. no one anoints
me with fresh-pressed oils,
denounces my daily ablutions.
some mornings I bear all
of the punishment and none
of the sin. some evenings
it feels like the opposite.
I have stood before oceans,
and seas, and lakes, walked in
up to my neck, and beyond,
with no sign of a pathway
opening before me. I pray
and there is only god’s stillness.
and yet—I listen. some days,
I hold a blade to my children’s
throats, casting about for a ram.
C.C. Apap’s writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Belt Magazine, Alba, The Thimble Literary Magazine, Roi Fainéant, Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight and The Wild Umbrella. His short story, “Bed and Breakfast,” is a 2024 Best of the Net Nominee. He teaches literature at Oakland University and lives north of Detroit in a suburb where doodle ownership seems like a fundamental requirement.