"Full Stop World" by Lawrence Moore

You canter on for years and years

with abstract hopes, with shallow fears,

complacency to hold your hand,

ellipsis, comma, ampersand.

One foolish move with flippant ease,

your toes slip through, your shins, your knees.

Before you know, you're fully hurled

within the jaws of Full Stop World.

The choices sprawled before your eyes

withdraw their words, revaporise.

One holds its shape, 'Accept this all',

the stoicists' recruitment call.

If you feel soothed, by all means go,

make friends with them, but down below,

like convicts tunnel underground,

subconscious thoughts will not be bound.

Lawrence Moore has been writing poems - some silly, some serious - since childhood. He lives in Portsmouth, England with his husband Matt and nine mostly well behaved cats. He has poetry published at, among others, Sarasvati, Pink Plastic House, Fevers of the Mind and The Madrigal. His first collection, Aerial Sweetshop, was published by Alien Buddha Press in January. @LawrenceMooreUK