Concrete Streets That Don’t Answer Back

Peeling paint clings to stoops like old skin,

faded duct tape sealing cracks from last year’s freeze.

The stray dog limps past piles of scattered trash,

nobody watching, nobody says please.

A broken fence leans under dim streetlight,

the city’s cold breath snuffs out any sound.

Windows like cracked eyes stare but do not see,

ground swallowed by concrete, hard and bound.

I walk these streets where nothing calls my name,

a ghost among the cracks that never mend.

The city moves on, unmoved by me,

a place that forgets before it begins to end.