I Remember You -- the city speaks

(The Hollow City Cycle include: The Hollow City I Remember You -- the city speaks Last One Left) You left me when the lights flickered and the water turned bitter. When the sky coughed ash and the birds stopped singing. You ran. All of you. As if I hadn’t held your every heartbeat in the bricks of my spine. I fed your dreams-- from paper boys to prophets. I kept your secrets in sewer grates and sun-warmed benches. I lit your windows, caught your tears, sheltered your sins. And now-- the vines know my name. The weeds whisper lullabies where children once screamed. The wind is my voice, and it remembers. Don’t come back to grieve what you abandoned. I have roots now. And bones.