Label Description: no one remembers when the first false wind stirred, nor a time before their song began. as the still of night soothes our slumbering valley, the first crackle of embers sways in the shadow of elm and willow. atop a bed of deadened bark comes the hiss of a breeze that disturbs not the canopy above, nor does it wick the salt from one’s skin. here does coloured dust swirl against the darkness, and the first hollow, melancholy chime ring out

i close my eyes and recall the flavour of scorched ash and a hint of her favourite mango bubblegum sweetening the filter of the cigarette we passed between us. laid upon the roof of our car, staring ever upwards awaiting the lanterns of the past’s nightporters to decorate the sky. always caught mid-laugh by the sounding of the lambent bells off in the distance, though hardly ever in any hurry to make ourselves their audience. not while we had a fool’s infinity to spare

sunken notes whistle through the abandoned woods. the lights of every promised yesterday glows upon my lidded eyes. i feel a dim, charred flake at my lip. i wish for it to taste of mango. this desire is enough to alert me once more to my sense of the present, and my eyes would draw open to a flurry of cinders as a bellow strikes deeply into the air. i step into the cloud of dim flickers, and listen to its cry wavering into the ink-black eternity as it fizzles away

within my chest, a sigh begs. yet i remain silent, lest my pained breath mask the warm tone of her voice. each night unmoored between the blooms may i remain, until i find her among the glittering chorus of the gone