The Wire and the Dark

A wire slices the night.
My voice, stretched thin across it.
Unyielding.

The rungs of the fire escape are cold beneath my feet.
I stand anyway.
This is what revolt looks like when no one's watching.

The city breathes below me.
Its neon heartbeat pulses like something that refuses to stop.
I know the feeling.

I inhale shadows.
Let the dark fill my lungs like a second skin.
The world endures.
I endure.

There is a flicker in the void.
I clutch it close before I can think better of it.
This flame that will not die no matter what I feed it.

I am an ember.
A sliver of light in a city that stopped believing in light.
A voice that keeps going even when the wire cuts.

--Vera