The rain begins with hesitant grace, Falling soft on the city's face. Across old rooftops, steel and rust, "It kisses stone and stirs the dust." In gutters it gathers, a fleeting gleam, A moment’s truth in a dying dream. It won't last. It never stays. Just like hope—it slips away. Harland exhales, slow and deep, A breath that rattles iron sleep. This city's chest, it heaves and groans, Built of steel, of ash, of bones. It’s always breathing, always near, It listens close, it draws you near. A whisper coils through humming lines— Streetlamps flicker over subway signs. Cocaine dust with a trip’s embrace, That sacred grin on a stranger’s face. No science, just the kind of dare, You only take if you don’t care. Harland shifts, the lens tilts wide, Plucks a soul from the city tide. Above District B where gutters bleed, Past Eldway’s stacks and broken creed. Beyond the lights of the Diamond’s spire, A phantom vein, a neon wire. Cars flow like blood beneath the skin, Pulsing toward the heart within. "My name is Harland," says the dark. Not in words, but in a spark Of pain, or rage, or something stark... A ripple in a trash-strewn breeze, A sob behind a dead cop's plea. A murmur lost in old routines, In cries and rusted vending machines. A voice without a shape or weight, Feminine, soft—but born of hate. "But you already knew," she sighs, As if the truth were just more rot and flies. She floats above, unseen but there, A whisper wrapped in midnight air. Over District B, the broken womb, The place where all things end in gloom. Where stories start and stories fall, With no catharsis, none at all. From Wharf to shadowed alleys deep, They come with dreams they’ll never keep. Stitched with hope, with foreign grace, To vanish in this cursed place. "They still believe," she says, bemused. "But hope like that gets black and bruised. They're all lost, in their own decay, Still thinking dawn will bring a new day." She pauses. Harland hears its breath. The kind that trembles close to death. Like oceans whispering to the shore, That they will kiss and claim no more. "They speak to me," she almost cries, "They curse me more than they ask why. I did my best, but it’s too late. This story? It began with fate." No happy endings. Ink ran dry. Before the truth could meet the lie. Before the first word hit the page, The city's grief became its rage. The rain keeps falling, veiled and thin, Blending neon with city sin. It paints the glass with ghostly light, A shimmer lost to Harland’s night. Above it all, she takes her place, Not just a name, but now a face. A goddess forged in soot and bone, A sovereign of the broken home. Her skin, a shade the dusk might keep, Marble faded, carved from sleep. Her hair, long strands of night and thread, Silvered like the long-forgotten dead. The dress she wears is torn, obscene, Yet lined in something vast, unseen. It stirs in wind that doesn’t blow, A riddle whispered deep below Her eyes hold crimes not yet confessed, The ache, the guilt, the dispossessed. She sees it all, the rot, the pride, The prayers that drift and go denied. "Ask me something," she almost grins, "Or tell me tales where someone wins. I like those stories, soft and bright. The kind that flicker, but still fight."
