One night I was delivered
Birthed from the womb
Of a hospital car
Into a dark room
With a chipped wooden desk
Where I sat to cry
Without light
Without hope
I read the walls
And quieted

"Love you will be okay"
Scrawled above my bed
In jagged strokes
As jagged as the edges
Of my broken mind
Sharp shards that cut me
Loose from my family
Stitched together
Only by the words
Of the walls

Crude were the scratches
That held me together
For so many days
They were borne of the same desperation
That I was
Sometimes, just knowing that
"You are not broken"
Was enough to keep me sane
When the doors screamed
And the moon kept me awake

How many times did I break
Behind thin and lapsing walls
With only the comfort of
"You are enough"
To beat out the chill
Of frosted windows
And Portland rain
With red eyes
And chapped lips
I turned to face the wall

Building up a broken will
Packing bags
With papers
Of a journey not so much travelled but
Fought I laid for the last time
Upon that bed
Taking pencil to plaster
Trying to let them know
"Someday you will read these words for the last time"
"This is not the end"