you are not a hospital room
you don’t have to keep everything
pure-white and sterile

you are ugly red clay on the walls
covering up your bruises with
pink cotton-candy fluff and
bright yellow smiley-face stickers
that you saved from first grade
living out of your car
and calling it a slumber party; sleep-away camp
far away from the monsters beneath your bed

you don’t have to paint your cheeks
with roses, leaving out parts of you like
a mad libs story we played to pass the time
on long car rides to the coast

we can sit in silence
while the world around us buzzes
with all its uncertain chaos and
my soul will find yours
in the space that rests above
this mess of existing