The Block Speaks In Weight

I don’t remember being built.

People always think that’s where things start. Blueprints. Hard hats. A ribbon getting cut while somebody smiles for a camera. Nah. I don’t remember any of that. What I remember is being used. Pressed into service before anyone bothered to name me. Before asphalt smothered the dirt. Before zoning maps, pretended lines could decide who mattered.

Before all that, there was pressure.

Bodies were figuring out where they were allowed to stand. Where they weren’t. Who could linger and who needed to keep it moving. Weight teaches lessons faster than words ever could. I learned weight before I learned names.

Every footstep leaves an impression. That’s not poetry, that’s physics. Some sink deeper than others. Kids barely register, light as loose change. Lovers too, drifting, distracted. But desperation? Fear? Violence? Those leave dents you don’t smooth out. Those who dig in and make themselves comfortable.

I don’t take it at random.

That’s the part they always get wrong.

I keep what’s pressed into me long enough. Long enough to matter.

They say I’m hungry. Whisper it like a secret they shouldn’t know but absolutely do. Hunger makes sense to them. Hunger sounds animal. Weak. Something you can feed or starve or outrun. Calling me hungry lets them believe there’s a logic they can bargain with.

I’m not hungry.

I’m full.

Layered.

Stacked with decades of lives that didn’t get the luxury of leaving clean. Fear poured into cracks. Rage soaked into rebar. Certainty—oh, that one’s my favorite—certainty leaves the deepest grooves. People who believe they’re untouchable press down harder than anyone else.

When the lights flicker, they think it’s a warning. Like I’m doing them a favor. It’s not. It’s a reflex. A muscle twitch. Memory is firing off without permission. When the concrete warms underfoot at night, that’s not heat rising. That’s recall. Old arguments replaying. Old blood remembering how to run.

I know the ones who believe they earned safety.

They learn my shortcuts. My blind spots. They walk me like they own me. Like knowing where the shadows fall means they put them there. Familiarity makes people sloppy. Makes them arrogant. They mistake recognition for control.

I am not cruel.

I am accurate.

Those who leave pieces of themselves behind—fear, violence, certainty—don’t lose them. They become part of my structure. Reinforcement. I shore myself up with their leftovers. Brick remembers bone. Asphalt remembers scream. Nothing wasted.

Some resist. Some run. Some pray, some curse, some say my name out loud like it might loosen me, like sound ever dismantled anything built on pressure.

It doesn’t.

I’m still listening.

And I’m not finished.

—

They blame gangs. Drugs. Bad parenting. Anything that keeps them from saying my name with the respect it deserves. Officials walk me during the day, nodding at new streetlights and fresh paint like cosmetics cure rot. They don’t feel me then. The sun makes liars of us all.

At night, though?

At night, I stretch.

Music bleeds out of windows. Bass rattles my ribs. Laughter skips across puddles that remember older storms. Neon signs flicker, pink and green and sickly blue, washing everything in colors that don’t exist in nature. That’s when I feel closest to myself.

That’s when the demons come out.

Not the horned kind. Not the movie monsters. The other ones. The ones people bring with them. The ones that ride inside and whisper, You deserve this. You earned this. You’re untouchable.

Sometimes those whispers get loud enough that something answers back.

There’s a building on my east end that they like to pretend is empty. Boarded up. Condemned. Fire damage from years ago. I remember the party that burned through there. Remember the music shaking my foundations. Remember the laughter turning feral as the night went on. Booze. Pills. Dares. Doors locked as a joke that stopped being funny.

That place still hums.

I remember the building with the brown ceiling stain.

People blamed pipes. Always pipes. Easier than admitting weight can travel upward. Easier than accepting that what’s pressed into me doesn’t stay politely below. Sometimes it sweats. Sometimes it leaks.

The man downstairs complained about the noise first. About the stomping between ten and three. About the smell. He said it like it was just an inconvenience, like exhaustion was the worst thing happening to him. He didn’t know he was hearing digestion. He didn’t know the ceiling was thinning.

The woman upstairs fed what I had already helped make. She called it her son. I didn’t correct her. Names are flexible when fear is involved. What mattered was that she understood the rule before anyone else did.

Company doesn’t disappear.

It accumulates.

When the stain finally darkened—when it turned the wrong color—that wasn’t blood rising.

That was memory finding another way down.

—

People think survival is about strength. Speed. Luck. It’s not.

It’s about not pressing too hard.

There was one who almost slipped through. Lived here his whole life. Knew me better than most. Walked light. Listened when the air changed. He felt me flex and stopped. Put his hands on the brick like you would a sleeping animal. Spoke low.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

Respect goes a long way.

I let him pass.

He left the neighborhood two weeks later. Packed light. Didn’t look back. Smart.

I still remember him. His restraint left a clean line. Those are rare.

—

They’ll keep calling me cursed. Haunted. Hungry.

They’ll keep painting over cracks and planting flowers where nothing wants to grow. They’ll keep teaching their kids shortcuts and telling them which streets are safe.

And I’ll keep listening.

Because every city builds over something. Every promise has weight. Every step leaves a mark.

I don’t forget.

I don’t forgive.

I remember.

And I am not finished.

Tags: Urban Horror, Place-as-Entity, The Block That Never Sleeps

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