Cadence Chung — Third prize, Year 12 We lovers

We lovers

We lovers sit in the space between breaths, we lie in glades unknown, we sing for something we do not understand, yet crave for nonetheless.

We lovers, having no bodies, are reduced to a myriad of whispers in dark rooms, to quiet expulsions of air, workings of lungs in forgotten places, drenched with the dark that only light can bring.

One million and one sonnets sing for us, we lie in shades and glades and sit under cherry, oak, and willow, we are the ultimate actors, we start each day in a new arrangement of verse

To my lover; these words are painted under our teeth and with each bite of life they imprint on its sweet fruit, we dance, we dance; and we have become experts at telling the difference.

We have hurt; we have hurt ourselves and others, slicing the cadavers of longing in order to drink the sweet sap of a muse’s pain; the pain of loss and the pain of love, between these, the difference is not so clear

Find us still; find us still lying under every sun, dancing in every ballroom, drinking every wine, kissing every lover; then retiring to live forever in every sonnet

— Cadence Chung, Wellington High School