A tap on my left shoulder
I am roused from my sleep
I turn and see my daughter
Who's been dead 3 years last week

She pulls me from my slumber
Humming broken lullabies
"Where're we going, dear?"
"Hush, it's a surprise"

She brings me to the subway
Down abandoned tracks
Graffitied walls like bathroom stalls
It's too late to turn back

She stops me in a room
Where people stand in wait
Silence presses in on the ceiling
Words that can't escape

My daughter sits on the tracks
And beckons me to as well
The people engrave words on brick
Like they're under a sort of spell

"Watch as it spreads"
She said in a hushed tone
I was about to ask what she meant
But then I felt it in my bones

The silence of the elders
Crashed through my throat and lungs
I felt the air thicken
Acid burned my tongue

Darkness pressed around me
A suffocating mass
I could not make a noise
She laid me on the tracks

It was all dimly familiar
The rumble without noise
The ghosts gathered around me
It was time to make a choice

Fools, I tried to say
But I choked on my own air
A shudder swept my body
I closed my eyes in prayer

I woke up in my bed
Sore from head to toe
Shaking from the recollection
Of what happened so long ago