CityLightning

"Tell me a story. Before I go. Speak to me about something." I say. Their eyes unfocus. - Once upon a time there was a crack. It was slim and delicate, like a sparrow's little bone, but it was homeless. It was homeless because every time it tried to settle down somewhere, it never worked out. It did live somewhere altogether – a big Victorian-style house, with rooms and terraces – but you know how it is – a crack needs somewhere quite cozier and smaller to call its own. Cracks are domestic things, of course. They only want permanence. The crack had recently had to leave a mug it had been living in after it fell apart rathe

The Little Thief realises things are changing after a conversation with an acquaintance, during which he'd been about to hold forth on a subject, and was interrupted. Thief: If I'm honest – Someone: Which you're not. He had laughed it off, and in truth, no-one except him remembers this exchange, this brief disruption of his composure which leaves him annoyed, quietly, when he thinks about it later. And that was the start of his downfall.                                            * The Little Thief wears black rags when stealing, and a red cloak with a hood to keep the rain off when selling. The Little Thief has brown eyes, and

"What are you reading?" I looked up at the girl, head and hip cocked like a gun, blocking the sunlight. How very charming of her. "Stephen Fry." "Oh! I'm very impressed." "I highly doubt that." "I mean it, believe me." An unusually blazing demand, made with commitment. My eyes went back to the pages again. "I don't really believe anyone nowadays." I said, with a hint of a smile and a shrug, attempting disenchanted composure. She seemed to fold herself neatly beside me onto the cool bench, leaning slightly, lightly to her right {towards me}. I gave way a fraction. There was a pause, during which I read - ...I gather that the picture do

You're sick from reading too much literature, fat from the words contained in your thrumming veins. You're unsatisfied as of yet, and it's not anyone else's turn to tell you why. Not now. Your tiredness is beginning to weigh on your shoulders. You want water lanterns in the shining dark. Your hair is short, certainly, but not stark enough to startle yourself into pleasure. You need more typewriter ribbons. You need more clothes. You need sleep. There are black strips hanging from your ceiling and a coin in currency you can't even use lying on your bedside table. There is a thirty-seven stanza poem waiting to be copied out onto rented-for-not

A: Over here. B: Ah, there you are. Stunning as ever, I see. {He sits down.} You - A: Shut up. A WAITER appears, seemingly out of thin air. A: Black coffee, milk and two sugars. B: Coke, thanks. He nods, and vanishes. A: So what took you so long to show? B: School. Well, you know how it is; not all of us are completely adept at playing truant whenever we feel like it, you know. A: It's a waste of fucking time. No-one bothers. B: No-one you know. And so says the boy sitting sulky in a dark corner with a - frankly dazzling - shiner. A does not respond, and avoids eye contact, scowling down at the gleaming tabletop. B gives up on wait

i. Unfurl the la from your tongue, bright and with apple-tinted, soft clarity. There is no more undiluted syllable than this; think of Greece, or Paris; balloons, or blackbirds. It should be perfumed, falling onto your skin like sanctified water, like a bell-chime, like a benediction. ii. Loop the bor round your teeth, a tight and firm blue wire made from dusky smoke that can't be held. Take it slow; revel in the depth and touch of the sound, swing it in a curve with no bottom. Roll it, deep, and feel the power rumble in your stomach. iii. The rious is the sweetest part. Think of darling, ruthless predators with glinting little canines and

I've got sunshine In a bag And starlight under my finger-nails. Crunching limbs in after-taste Bitter juice sinking into your tongue And indolence outlining your lips. Remember me; when I am young yet grey When times seem set to wink at your control I'll laugh at your composure, my darling. We breathe out pearls and Comfort doesn't exist outside your arms For me, at least, but I won't share. Coughing out your last. Kisses imprinted on your aching joints. Because I'm bad for you.

She flags one down at last, teetering precariously on the pavement with one cold hand wrapped weakly round an iron lamp-post. {She'd looked up at it earlier, smiled in affection at memories of searching for a boy in Kensington gardens, the one no-one could ever find. Everyone knows which boy that is. He's been here before, she bets herself. Perched on the lamp post for a second in tangled-up longing for Wendy. Will he, won't he... And of course, he won't.} But at last there's a cab, after all that frantic waving. Brakes whine softly, more a clearing of a throat than a declaration of presence, and she climbs in. Drenched from head to toe, th

i. destructive kindness, desert cat's eyes, sacrifice, wisteria in evening's stillness, hour of blue, cool bodies, guitar strings tethering broken bones, strawberries, need, the one question, anything-for-you. ii. licking flames, desert cat's eyes, Pan's fireflies, warmth, grin, butterfly lashes, sharpness {you can't be too careful anymore}, refusal, ashes from sparks, Maroon 5, who i am hates who i've been. iii. cigarettes, injury, undisclosed desires {he does love you}, exhaustion, blood-tattoos, never-let-them-see-you-cry, guardian, American Pie, rest, promises from charred feathers, comrades-in-arms. iv. frozen derision, shared sociopa

flaunt your flaws, honey, because they are more precious to me than the beating of my own shallow heart. and sometimes i wish it would just stop. i can't afford to waste all this time, you see, that i could be listening to you. anything. the cane-sugar-and-whispering-bees-tones of your voice, the laugh i can't ever remember exactly when i want to indulge myself, or the millionandoneotherfuckingclichés that have stuck themselves onto my skin somehow. i want to just steal you away from the rest of the world. come on, it's not like they matter. and i don't want them to see you - you're just mine - so if i captured your soul in an old glass