they don’t sleep.
they submit.
bodies boxed in concrete coffins,
ten floors high, a hundred deep
paper-thin walls where arguments
bleed through like veins under skin.

fluorescent guilt buzzes louder than breath.
no dreams.
just the dull hum of lightbulbs choking
on what they used to mean.

sky?
that’s just bruise-stained ceiling.
nobody looks up.
we already know
what’s not there.

children speak silence fluently
tongues trained in broken things.
they read eviction notices
before bedtime stories.

mothers rock infants in overdraft arms,
crooning hymns of unpaid light.
fathers vanish
not with thunder, but with rust,
names ash on window corners,
like they never learned how to stay.

the street don’t whisper,
it grinds.
the sidewalk sings in fractured teeth.
there’s gospel in the gutter,
but it’s all static,
all rust and cigarette ends.

you want salvation?
ask the liquor store.
they sell God in plastic bottles
and false hope,
2-for-1.

aisles stacked with plastic joy,
bright things for broken hands.
price tags read like ransom notes—
freedom leased in thirty months.
a sale on silence.
a discount on despair.

the rain comes through the roof again.
they call it rhythm.
we call it giving up slowly.

still, we pray.
to blue screens,
to blinking routers,
to gods that filed for bankruptcy
in '08.

and me?
I came with paper.
with policy.
with polished shoes and smiling ink.
a badge that said “Hope Officer”
but meant
“We’ll study your suffering later.”

they said uplift.
I gave speeches that tasted like chalk.
they said restore faith.
I handed them mirrors.
they shattered.

I tried.
I swear I ******* tried.
but the ceiling kept lowering
and the floor
kept giving out.

now I walk
coat tight,
head down,
the city murmuring suicide
in lightposts and passing trains.

every window a wound.
every bus stop a confessional booth.
every breath
another god that didn’t answer.

this place is a psalm of what’s left
after justice forgets your name.
after the future skips your bloodline.
after the hymns
turn hollow.