The sun never sets in this city. Light clings to the horizon like a jealous King gripping his crown as he banishes every illegal glimmer, each gratuitous glow. It is a sky radiance raped and bright abandoned; dark, empty, no longer alight. Here, stars are fallen knights imprisoned by street lamps and concrete walls cocooned in expired posters and stale graffiti. There are no sparkling sapphire nights, no constellations to connect the images of childhood dreams birthed on Islands; only a dull orange haze hanging low in the distance and a lot of people who never look up because there’s nothing to see. It is a place where new faces, like mine, go as unnoticed as a misplaced moon.
Amber Williams-King
Revolution
Her love lies listless in the bosom of a bedroom Between dust and dirtied sheets Emptied drawers and lonely, closeted spaces Unwashed windows and the widow woman’s tears Water she now knows the taste of Behind wandering walls, beneath unfamiliar floors Her desire slips silently unseen Around toes, over hands, through words Balancing uneasy on the tip of anxious lips To be swallowed whole and undigested In the middle of the night, it moves Voiceless amongst forgotten names and unwanted numbers Creeping – Creaking under the weight of foreign feet As it is carried across candlelit cityscapes, Scraping concrete against open mouths Clothes slip too easily from her borrowed body His absent sweat stinging memories As her rhythm clings to the sound of moans Hidden in graves dug belly-deep She sleeps to dream its freedom.