Draft in the author’s style. This poem was written for Poet of Chilling Shivers to sit beside the author’s own readings, and is waiting for the author’s review. The commentary is a working draft too.
The office building has no thirteenth floor, the buttons all agree,
Yet the lift stopped there at midnight, and the doors shuddered open for me.
A corridor of flickering lights stretched out in a pale green haze,
With desks in silent rows and screens that hummed in a ghostly daze.
Every screen displayed my name, and beneath it, ticking slow,
A number counting downward to a time I did not know.
I stumbled back and hammered on the button for the ground,
But the lift began to whisper in a soft and tinny sound.
It said, you work here, dear, you have for years and years,
And the doors closed like a curtain on my silent, rising fears.
So they say there is no thirteenth floor, and I nod and play along,
But I never ride the lift at night, for I know where the chime belongs.
Poet of Chilling Shivers · Hear it on the channel ↗
Commentary
A missing floor is one of the oldest office ghost stories. This poem takes a lift ride at midnight and lets the reader discover that the building has been keeping something behind its numbers.
The building “has no thirteenth floor, the buttons all agree,” yet “the lift stopped there at midnight.” The doors open on “a corridor of flickering lights” and “screens that hummed in a ghostly daze.” Every screen displays the speaker’s name, with “a number counting downward to a time I did not know.”
The speaker “hammered on the button for the ground,” but the lift whispers, “you work here, dear, you have for years and years.” The doors close, and the speaker now plays along with the story that “there is no thirteenth floor.” The poem ends on a promise: “I never ride the lift at night.”