The Warehouse District Empty

The Warehouse District Empty
I drive past loading bays that used to roar,
now they yawn like mouths that lost their taste
Dock doors shut like eyelids on a corpse,
and every painted number feels misplaced
A chain-link fence keeps grinning at the street, its grin says keep out,
its grin says come and see
I park where forklifts once did their ballet,
and let the quiet do its work on me

The air smells like cardboard ghosts and diesel memory,
like money burned but never warmed a hand
I hear a flagpole clink its thin complaint,
a tiny bell for rent that no one understands
Security lights blink like tired eyes that swear they’re watching,
though they’ve got nothing left to guard
Cameras swivel in their plastic helmets,
still hunting motion like a hungry yard dog gone hard

I count the empty trailers like old prayers,
I count the cracks where weeds keep winning slow
I count the silence, since it never lies, it only grows and grows and grows

Warehouse district empty, still it keeps me in its spell
Warehouse district empty, every echo is a cell
Warehouse district empty, I can taste the busted deal
Warehouse district empty, and the vacancy feels real

I walk the painted arrows on the asphalt,
arrows pointing nowhere with obedient flair
A puddle holds a ceiling of gray cloud,
and my reflection looks like someone who should not be there
A billboard nearby promises quick delivery, a bright lie over a dead zone’s jaw
The joke is sharp, the joke is simple, want it now, then watch it all withdraw

I think of hands that taped up boxes, hands that clocked in,
hands that built a life on shifts and strain
Now the clocks stay lit without a purpose, blinking time like a low-grade pain
A rat darts under a pallet stack, quick as guilt,
quick as a secret kept too long
I follow it with my eyes, then laugh once,
since even rats look like they know where they belong

The wind drags loose plastic down the lane,
a pale ribbon that keeps trying to be free
It snaps against a rusted sign that reads nothing,
and the nothing stares back at me

I swear the place remembers every order, every rush,
every late truck pushing through the night
Now it only remembers my footsteps,
and the way my breath turns loud beneath the sodium-white light
I feel like somebody’s being counted, like my name is on a clipboard held by air
Obsession isn’t always romance, sometimes it’s a ruin you return to,
just to prove you’re there

Power games happen in bright offices, then the fallout sits out here, shut down,
stacked, and cold
A district built for motion learns stillness, and stillness makes a man feel old
I press my palm to a steel door seam, and the chill runs up my arm like news
I imagine every locked bay as a throat, all those unsaid words,
all those unpaid dues

Then my phone lights up with a message from real life,
and I ignore it like a man who wants to disappear
I keep staring at the blank docks,
hoping the emptiness will say my fear out loud and make it clear

I leave at last, tires hissing on gravel,
and the rearview shows the buildings shrinking like a bad promise finally kept
The cameras keep rotating with no witness, the fences keep smiling,
and the silence stays put and never slept