The Nights the Lights Are Out

A house made of steel‑bones and winding alleys,

where laughter once rang like a subway’s hymn,

you felt the sudden hush of a shuttered storefront—

a window smashed, a soul slipped through the crack.

The neon that once draped your evenings in gold

now flickered, as if the city’s own heart

had paused its pulse beneath a rain‑slicked sky.

Hear, mournful, the echo of footfalls on cracked pavement,

the hush of traffic lights holding their amber breath.

Graffiti on brick walls—unfinished verses—

spells the name of what you have lost, a phantom tag

that drips with the ink of tears, yet does not yet fade.

In the alleyway of sorrow, the family huddles,

each hand a lantern, each breath a soft siren

calling forth the memory of what once rang clear.

Yet from the dust rise steel ribs, the scaffolding of hope,

cranes—gentle giants—hoist the weight of grief aloft.

Your voices, like subway cars, converge at the tunnel’s bend,

clattering together, unbroken, forging a new track.