The Mental Ward

The Mental Ward

White walls, white light, white lies whispered in careful tones,

Everything clean enough to hide the stains beneath,

They smiled like they knew me, like they owned my thoughts,

And wrote me down before I could even speak.

A chair in the corner knew more secrets than I did,

It held the weight of bodies that had forgotten their names,

And I sat there too, another number breathing slowly,

Counting cracks that crawled across the ceiling.

They asked me how I felt, again and again,

As if feelings were simple, as if truth was neat,

I tried to answer, but the words broke apart in my mouth,

Falling like ash no one cared to sweep.

The nights were louder than the days could ever admit,

Footsteps pacing, someone crying through clenched teeth,

A laugh that did not belong to anything living,

And silence that pressed hard against my chest.

They gave me pills shaped like promises,

Small, bitter, and impossible to refuse,

I swallowed pieces of forgetting, pieces of sleep,

Until even my own voice felt far away.

One morning I woke and did not recognise my thoughts,

They moved slower, softer, safer,

But something wild had been taken from me,

Something sharp enough to prove I was real.

I left with a file, a label, a careful goodbye,

But the ward followed me home in quiet ways,

In the way I pause before I speak,

In the way I no longer trust my own mind.

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