Inside there are
books piled upon
books piled on
tables.

Broken calculators
blanket the floor.
Factory beige.

Cracks run underneath.
Insects chatter.
Moss grows.

Dead flowers in black vases
grace midnight windows
under fluorescents strips.
A lurid spectacle.

Dusty mirrors show long neglect.
reflections shunned like criminals.

A staircase descends into darkness
on the other side of a door
torn from its hinges.

All the floors
beneath the floors
and rooms behind
rooms behind walls
change between visits.

A stranger not certain
what they should wear.

Webs in darkened corners.
suggest larger things.

An empty trophy case lingers
at the far wall
crumbling
like a forgotten receipt
in a back pocket.

Close as a buried trauma.

Once the wind gets into this place
things become scattered.
Unmoored.

Once the night comes in
it’s hard to get it out
and it’s hard to understand
why.