This is Not the Way Out

Post group inspiration inside the Maynard parking structure.

Silence echoes all around, but the too-bright lights scream in my eyes,
“This is not the way out!”
Surrounded by crumbling concrete splashed with faded paint. Blue arrows point in any direction,
but this is not the way out.
I spin round and round watching as the filthy, tattered tarps block out the view of the outside world,
and this is not the way out.
I am relentlessly pursued by unblinking eyes boring into the back of my skull. They follow me, follow me, hound me, and I try to tell them
this is not the way out.
Around each corner a new obstacle awaits, but every one is the same. Though the signs say exit,
this is not the way out.
I finally pay the rickety gatekeeper and emerge into the night. He waves me on smiling, and his teeth speak to me.
“This is not the way out.”