I remember the name.
Nine times washed by the floods
that creased the bank.
They say it used to be a hospital
during the war. Some journalist got it
all figured out - shut the place down.
They say if you go there at night,
you'll hear the ghost of the patients
All of their souls,
locked up.
It used to house the criminally insane,
but I haven't been there recently,
not since our old man passed away.
We dared each other to try and spend the whole night
in those dingy, moldy and monoxide soaked halls,
He used to go there too, you know?
Hid out till past dark to drag our sorry asses
to the fifth room, second floor.
I heard he shot up
with the other kids. I memorised the route he took
after stealing his dad's keys.
Used to scream when the engine died.
He isn't leaving the fort anytime soon.
She used to go there too,
right after the town got flooded for the first time.
Warm rain soaked the mud on our feet,
I found the needle he used. I felt like I should have
taken it - he would have wanted me to know
that it ain't our fault he's gone.
She used to blindfold us
and set us loose in the old hospital.
The Fort never was kind to kids like us,
the walls used to creak
and the floors loomed with a promise
of breaking out beneath us.
When the sun rose, it never hit the place,
she used to hold us in the dark
when we couldn't see our own fingers.
Held it close to her chest,
that's how she fell down the stairs, you know?
Some kid pushed her - screaming and cryin'
about their own dad. Wish I was the one to push her,
everyone knew she had it coming.
They say it's haunted now, nobody's gone back to it.
They've always said its haunted,
now they just don't say the names.
I'm tempted to visit,
see if my own ghost is lingering on the window. I bet
he's waiting, probably has been
since they all died. We've grown up past them,
going on the age we said I'd die at.
Old Fort Harvey was made for people like us,
no surprise that I've lost myself there,
still waiting for the water to rise
and to wash the clay off my feet, the blood
in the cracked palms of my hands.