The houses rot now.
Pink paint curls, plywood boards nailed over doors.
Bars welded to windows,
not for decoration—
for survival.

What was once a mortgage milestone
is now a family prison.
Three generations crushed into one house,
splitting bills, rationing space,
barely scraping by.

Across the street,
a meth house hums like a broken neon.
Down the block,
the cracked-out shuffle until morning.
Cops don’t bother.
Patrol cars roll past like blind ghosts,
pretending it isn’t here.

This isn’t the dream.
It’s the afterimage.
A hollow suburb with no savior,
no investor,
no gentrifier on the horizon.

These streets are abandoned policy,
forgotten futures,
promises pawned off for quick profit.

The houses still stand—
but they’re coffins now,
lined in neat suburban rows.

The dream fractured long ago.

—JON.E.B. | Fractured