Keep me where the Light Is
by Sophia Zheng, Lauriston Girls’ School
Finalist, Years 11 – 12, written poetry
and I’m tired of sadness, of winter fireplaces blazing
between mottled stone walls, dresses sweeping across
pockmarked floors. winter solstice
and your affinity for candlelight, snowglobes twirling in hurricane winds
between wingbeats; physics discarded alongside half-formulated designs littering
your desk, lamplight puddling on tables. and
I’ve been here before, knee-deep in loose paper, taping hertzsprung-russell diagrams
to your ceiling, stringing up paper planes – we learnt to dance just
outside your room, windows thrown wide open, your scarlet lipstick lost
in the taste of copper. sunset streaking the floors gold, hand in hand, swaying, water
four feet deep; summer seasickness we both forgot to remember. and we were silhouetted in
sunbeams, cinematography
you would appreciate, scarlet in my hair, my hands, cast into a light
we couldn’t keep, collision courses mapped out in our palms, our lips. your smile
softening in firelight, my fingers trapped in amber. and I think I was your
satellite; the type that burns in the sun but dies
in the dark.
Want to read more poems? Explore the other Years 11 – 12 finalists.