doe-eyed

we’re all just kids riding bikes through
quiet neighbourhoods where all the houses
are identical and the colour of sand.
we’re all just the distant sounds of laughter,
sometimes crying.
we’re all just streetlights, we’re all trying
not to blind each other when we open
our mouths and sometimes we’re candles
and other times we’re the splash of water
and the flood.
we don’t mean to do this to each other
turn ourselves into headlights
and everyone else into deer.
we don’t mean to make the world
an open wound, but sometimes you’ll look
down and see the sharp thing in your own
hand. use your mouth or shut it then.
turn on veranda-light, open your hand.
we’re waking up together, we’re each other’s
alarm clocks, we’re the painted chain-link
fences, we’re the scream of love, we’re standing
up all the way down hill on bicycles we never
owned but somehow made out of all this red.

Zia Ravenscroft

Zia Ravenscroft is a writer, actor, and drag king currently studying in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. He has previously been published in Starling, Cordite, and Circular among others, and performed at the National Poetry Slam Finals in 2023. They like writing about boys and bodies and boys’ bodies.