I now live in congestion,

In darkness: four walls enclose me.

Look up to the stars, hear me scream my confession, feel

The heat of its dampened rage, see it yearn to be free.

Do I rattle your dreams? Does my anger scare you?

They slammed your Sun against slabs of iron,

They bled her and beat her – can you not feel her leeching hue?

Can you not hear her hammering fists as they stamp out the embers of her fire?

I have one window, above head. It taunts me;

Between life and death, the flickering road to safety.

Safety? Pah. They’ve forsaken me, and him in whose hands

Lay my heart, him with blazon wings – his throat smiles bright red.

They suffocate me between four cold walls,

So far am I from

The sun-soaked soil of my country beloved,

Its fruit and flowers and frailty. 

I know better than to give in to the flutterings of my heart

When it hears guards whispering beyond by new abode,

Whispering of rebels and fire and fight –

No, I want to know nothing at all.

It is nothingness I crave, 

The precarious peak between today and tomorrow.

I will stare at the lonely crescent out my single window,

I will contend in the stars’ sorrow.

For one of their sisters has been locking in the dark,

Never again to bask in light. 

I silence my aching heart –

This new place leaves no room for me to ignite.