They breathe in steel,
lungs filled with smoke
from the hollow of forgotten cities,
where rust is the only voice they know.

Hands scrape skin,
too cold to touch
fingerprints burned to wire,
in a song no one remembers.

The streets bleed
in rhythms that never leave
boots press the pulse flat,
repeating orders not their own.

A child’s cry,
a fracture in the dark,
but they hear only
the grinding of their feet,
the hum of metal on metal
and nothing more.