By Zahrah Surooprajally The one thing I want to do is forget. All the shit the other guys put me through. You’re different. I love watching the sun set with you. I don’t get bored. Get stuck like glue. The rainy days in – we snuggle and fight. We’re so different, but our souls … More WANT TO FORGET HOW TO REMEMBER WITH YOU
By Alex Ciobanu Dicks were flying at me from every direction, but I just couldn’t catch any. I sit on my bed and blow the smoke out towards the opened window, from a joint leftover from last night. I’m only a little drunk now. I watch the smoke fill the room, unveiled by the six … More COLLAPSE
By LJ Cadogan my skin no better than a graffiti stained wall from where you tagged your name over and over and over until every brick was covered in your signature mauve spray-paint you only ever tagged me after sunset. like all illegitimate things, I was a secret held in the flap of gum … More LEAKE STREET TUNNEL
By Soraya Bouazzaoui It had ended as incidents like these always do, with a rage so indescribable that Amal’s eyes were blinded by it. Burning hot like molten iron, and flowing through her veins as blood would, adrenaline accompanied it much the same. Her strength was unusual for someone of her small stature, barely … More US GIRLS
By Amanda Fuller It wasn’t love at first sight. Not that I didn’t find her appealing, there was definitely something about her. No one would ever call her pretty, but there’s a rough, unconventional charisma, a quirky charm, that it’s easy to overlook, at first. She has a split personality, you see. Misanthropic and … More THE ‘L’ WORD
By Benjamin Corry Wright Kootbaully I take a step from off the deck and in To night; a heady lift of air, to steep The week. As light subsides, lungs open wide, Exhaustion, engines, fall behind. The grounds will rise at lower tides, Unlatch the filters – serve the night. My breath … More CIRCULATION
By Rae Gellel At the end of a busy night, the strip club is almost beautiful. Once the empty bottles have been swept from the mahogany tables and dropped into the bin with a satisfying clank, once ring stains have been scrubbed at and velvet chairs pushed in and the deep purple carpet vacuumed by … More AT THE END OF A BUSY NIGHT
By Timothy Willmore-Flowers ‘Explain it to me again’ he asked. ‘Sure.’ I replied. Wednesday. I finished work twenty minutes early so I could go to the gift shop and buy ten heart-shaped helium balloons. It was our wedding anniversary: ten balloons, ten years, it was obvious, but perfectly appropriate. On the overground train heading home, … More LESSONS FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
By Bistra Nikolova Somewhere in the narrow, dark streets behind Leicester Square, the early hours were exactly the time when a different kind of people would walk as shadows trying badly to forget about the light part of the day. Or maybe even about the dark one too. Many of those night creatures had … More THE NEXT DAY STORY
By Sophie Raphael The lights turn off and my existential crisis begins. I am a lie and a figment of my own imagination, Caught between who I want to be and who I’m settling to become. I chop, re-design and change. Should I be allowed to dream, to believe, to feel? Fear of failure, … More EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
By Dele Oladeji I fell apart, not to fall ever again. Flickering like a lone star. Voices, I hear. I wove myself out of darkness, My cataract infected eyes twitched. I looked through the window, Murky smell of thick air oozed. This is the East End- When the leaders see our faces They see … More VOICES AFTER THE CITY LIGHTS
By Sophie Bowles Because I only have friends who do madnesses unto themselves and never go out on Saturday night, only out to the offy, bed & back to hide behind the pillow with the strops and socks while everyone else laughs and dances away, or robbing the bookies, I watch the scenes alone,laughter, … More LOVED BY LONDON AFTER DARK
By Morghan Nunn-Menson It was all cast In colourless tones, And an air Of crossed eyes Weighed down The streets Like a military parade. The birds I heard, But rarely did I see. So much life, Yet so little. What united us, It seems, Were our guarded hopes And sacred dreams And the … More LONDON
By Sajidah Iqbal His soul shrouded in a dismal, dreary darkness, Bereft of as much as, a tiny tinsel of brightness. He is destitute of words and deficient in life, Devoid of any luck and depleted in pride. Blitz, bombs, burns, rifles, tanks, devastation, His life upside down, like some frenzied fiction. He … More DEADBEAT DARKNESS
By Amanda Hein It was after 4 am, I can remember that. Herded; the change of music to a slow hum, like a pied piper sending the sheep out of the club at 3, flocking to the nearest kebab. Bah. Greasy burgers sopped in mayonnaise, chips drenched in ketchup, the overpriced taxi ride. Yes, it … More 12 SAUNCEY WOOD
By Rob Hakimian Through his window he watched the rim of the sun disappear behind the top floor of the high rise across the park. Its shadow now blocked out the last rays of sun that made it through his small bedroom window. Soon it would be dark, and after that he knew his resolve … More THE BOY WHO CRIED
By Rachele Salvini My grandfather had a little boat, where we sailed until our salted skin got burnt. His hands were fast, spotless and young as he talked, gripping the ship’s wheel. He told me about squids and moray eels. We had no canals, but we had Fossi which literally means moats. Trenches. Green, … More FALLING ASLEEP ON THE THAMES
By Zoe Maynard White lights speed past my body. Screeching screams escape from the track, the doors fly open. No hustling and bustling like in rush hour mayhem, the carriage has a scrunched up newspaper to keep me company. Outside the station, the eye watches me as she turns full circle. Without blinking, she watches … More NIGHT VISIONS
By Bethan Morgan Excerpt from the Ministerial and Other Salaries Amendment Act 2025: In the case of the aforementioned offices a salary may be paid to each holder of office subject to the limitations expressed below, that is to say— That it is within the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister to appoint any number of … More JACK OF DIAMONDS
By Paul Chafer Journeying towards the galaxy centre, I pass a blue pearl and become intrigued by the pulses of energy dotted around the dark surface. On descending towards these glowing power buds, I detect the thrumming buzz of life. More than this, I see it is both one amorphous mass, and a gathering of … More CITY OF THE BLUE PEARL
Wells Street Journal 