Boarded windows frown down empty streets

Boarded windows frown down empty streets,

chains rattle in the wind like worn-out bones.

I walk past graffiti bleeding anger and hope,

but the city’s cold breath doesn’t warm me.

Sirens fade into a dull gray sky,

a playground abandoned beneath wire fences.

No one asks about the shadows I learned to live in,

no one stops to hear what silence means here.

I’m just another cracked corner, unseen,

another crack in a city that won’t look back,

a place where belonging was never a question,

just a door closed in a face I never found.