Lost El Paso Paranormal

A

Across the way from San Jacinto’s square,

Where bronze alligators frozenly stare,

The Main Library stands in a limestone shroud,

Hushed and heavy, aloof from the crowd.

But when the Sun City sinks into the night,

And the desert wind rattles the glass in its light,
 

The residents of the silent floor

Step out from the margins of old folklore.

For in Downtown El Paso, where the border-lines blur,

And the ghosts of the mountains begin to recur,

The library holds more than ink and dry glue;

It holds every dreamer the city once knew.
 

Between the stacks of quiet lore,

Where desert heat meets marble floor,

The spirits of the Downtown Main

Are whispering in the cooling rain.

They linger near the spiral stair,

A scent of parchment in the air—
 

Shadows cast by long-dead pens,

Tracing ink and "where" and "when."

There’s a chill by the shelves of the poetry section,

A sudden, inexplicable, cold recollection—

A scent of old pipe smoke and coffee gone cold,

The smell of a story that’s yet to be told.
 

They don’t want your soul or to cause you a fright,

They just want a lamp and a sliver of light.

No rattling chains or hollow cries,

Just focused gazes, heavy eyes,

Of readers who could never leave

The stories they helped interweave.
 

When moonlight gazes on Oregon Street,

And city pulses lose their beat,

The ghosts return to shelves they knew,

To finish books long overdue.

So if a book falls when no one is near,

Or a whisper of Spanish brushes your ear,
 

Just leave it in place, let the silence remain—

They’re only just reading, at the Downtown Main.'

BY: Author Heather Shade