every time the darkness gathers in my chest
i turn to your lighter
you lift your face to the cold dark night
and exhale light
from where i’m sitting it looks like you’re calling home
not knowing you don’t own a shadow anymore
you don’t recognise the feathers in my hand
you are always disguised as yourself
our bodies were only ever doorways to each other
we were because we are
time scares me so i hold your hand
when we cross the street
uncrossed lines in our palms align
and stars swing higher every time
you wake and in your eyes
the sun is drowning in the ocean’s cries
no one can rise without a dark horizon
to pull themselves onto
the streetlight flickers, reality ripples
and everything, all of it, is already a memory
Jeremy Tiboth is a poet and writer from Rehoboth, Namibia. His work has appeared in Doek! and The Kalahari Review. He is the winner of the 2025 Doek Literary Award for Fiction and also attended the JIAS 2025 Creative Writing Workshop.