The sunlight through piss and pain

Some places you don’t write about. You survive them. Frost on the telly, piss on the stairs, Smells like bleach, burnt foil, and prayers. Boiler’s gone. Sockets dead. Someone’s screaming. Someone bled. Tinfoil wings fill every bin, Ashtrays stacked with yesterday’s sin. Fridge blows air. The kitchen’s grave— Nothing left, and none to save. Upstairs she rocks a silent kid, Eyes like glass, ribs half-hid. Skin all wire, voice all gone— “He screams less when I use alone.” Three doors down, a bloke named Rick Dealt ten bags to fund his fix. Found his brother stiff and blue— Took his coat, then shot up too. They found her curled behind the bins, Legs like rope, cuts on her shins. Said she slipped. Said it was rain. But silence screams when soaked in shame. Kid got stabbed by the corner shop— Twelve years old, still learning to chop. Mum lit candles. No one came. Council rinsed, but the stain remained. Still— still— Through all the filth and smashed-out glass, a streak of sun begins to pass. It cuts across the piss and pain, slides through blinds, through cracked windowpane. It brushes past the silent kid, Eyes like glass, ribs half-hid. No cries now, just the ticking room— Still rocked gently in her gloom. It lingers at Rick’s old front door, His coat long gone, his name no more. His ghost still trapped where the rot runs deep— No peace, no fix, no final sleep. It finds the girl still by the bins, Track marks raw on paper skin. She doesn’t move, just lets it burn— “Smoke still holds me. Wait your turn.” The sun don’t ask what you’ve done wrong. It just turns up. Don’t stay too long. Don’t save the good. Don’t curse the bad. It lights the wreckage, leaves you mad. And while it’s here, we breathe. We fight. We crawl one inch. We steal some light. A thread of gold. A breath. A flame. On streets they curse but still proclaim. So write it raw. Don’t make it sweet. Don’t bleach the blood. Don’t clean the street. We ain’t saints. We ain’t pure. But we’re still here. And we endure. This is the sound of neglected Britain— forgotten, boarded, pissed-on, driven. A country that don’t fix, just shame. And sun that shines on piss and pain.