The elevator's dead a hollow shaft

The elevator's dead, a hollow shaft,

so I take the door to the back instead.

The air is thick with a basement draft

and the things that people have left unsaid.

On the third step down, a yellow tread

holds a crushed-out filter, brown and dry.

Someone stood here with a heavy head

and listened to a neighbor upstairs cry.

I didn't look up to find the face,

I just kept my boots on the cold cement.

It’s a vertical, grey and lonely space

where the sound of the world is finally spent.