flashes of genius.

Make yourself up and paint the city red;

let go and show your inner shine.

The world awaits your radiance.

Glow.

 

This is your Cage.
With all its hidden bombs, wrapped in cotton wool.
Barbed and wired, barred and boarded:
This is your resting place.

This is your Home.

I am not my own,

just like you are not yours;

we are not individuals,

but a mass of living matter.

 

In the dark corner, I sit with my one candle – its light aflicker, my body aquiver.
Chapped hands hold the dimming flame – my breath abated, lest it go out.