These used to be windows that kept the cold out,
that frosted over and made the harsh winters translucent.
Now they are nothing but the staring eyes of the dead,
offering the hope of a view but there’s no one behind them,
no child blowing breath on the glass and creating new shapes,
one pane now smashed and if neglect needs something to be broken.
The lives of so many fractured minds found their fate here,
it’s little wonder the ghosts don’t walk down the hallways,
there’s nothing to see but the decay of unreliable paint,
nothing to hear but the silence a building like this once craved.
The dead do not dwell here, the darkness is too empty,
the beds are empty and echoing footsteps do not pass the doors.
So much sacrifice went into the destruction of every dream
that even the living find the atmosphere repulsive and vile,
that even in its history, this building wails like its occupants
once did when the typhoid was bad and the madness set in.
A grave without a body, the loneliest place in the world.