A Pocketful of Sunshine

They come with pockets full of sunshine, yellow pills like dying stars, scattered along Kensington’s broken spine— this avenue of hollow breaths and burnt-out dreams. Neon signs flicker in the fog of dusk, their glow mocking the dim light in glassy eyes sunk deep into faces carved by hunger and haze. Skin stretched thin over bones like plastic bags snagged on rusted fences. The streets breathe slow and shallow, littered with needles— silver promises turned poison. Laughter here is brittle, shattered glass crunching beneath tired feet. Even the wind moves carefully, afraid to stir the fragile ruins. Once, there were playgrounds— now swings creak with the ghosts of children who no longer laugh. The scent of fast food grease mixes with the copper tang of blood and despair. Deals whispered in alleyways like prayers to a silent god. They clutch at that sunshine— tiny suns to burn away the cold, to melt the ache gnawing at their ribs, to blind them from the slow decay creeping up their veins. But the sunshine is ash. It burns bright for a breath, then leaves them colder, slumped against crumbling row houses where no one knocks, no one waits. Mothers with hollow gazes search for sons lost in the amber glow of spoon and flame. Sirens wail like mourning doves, carrying bodies wrapped in stillness from corners that forget names. Kensington weeps at dawn, the city waking to streets swept clean of stories no one dares tell. And still— they come with pockets full of sunshine, chasing warmth that turns to shadow, burning out beneath a sky that never learned to care.