night comets, tumbling downward by Brian Lee (19, Singapore)

[Content warning: traumatic event/death]

In memory of the Itaewon victims

they each had their own:
irises, shoe size, colourful clothes.
in spheres more invisible,
each to the neon clouds
of their dreams, flying westward
faster than the setting sun--
they did not run fast enough.

they were looking for some fun:
flushed cheeks and tipsy feet,
kaonashi masks and at-40 hits.
time of day, season of year
permitted a hiatus of the serious,
paths wrought with iron 
far beyond the visible--
they did not run fast enough.

they had waited rather long:
two years (twenty-four months)
to depart from the blinds
and live as the young. and young
means lively, young means
deafening, young means
fleeting impulses of chosen regret--
they did not run fast enough.

they came disparate:
and soon became indiscriminate,
a sea of forgettable faces,
a surging river from three places.
the stars at the end
of the soot-laden path

they reached out for, but now
they shimmied, as broken 
dots from waves upon rocks.
they could not run enough.