#controlled - Hello Poetry

I tell myself, can't see ahead, But my path is already drawn? A narrow line in antiseptic light that runs from dusk to dawn. Each morning bleeds from yesterday through walls too white to stain, and prophecy is nothing more than habit dressed as chain. I wake inside a measured room, where padded corners bloom, and silence hums fluorescent hymns against a vacant tune. Who decides what sane is? Who writes the rules for me? If healing feels like suffocating, is that recovery? You call this safety, call it care I call it slowly dying. Tie my hands, dim the lights, but you can’t stop me trying. A canvas binds my restless arms, fabric biting skin; they say it’s for protection I say it cages what’s within. Once I held a voice so clear like winter in the air, now it shatters into swallowed glass and settles into prayer. Save me, smiling martyr, step down from polished wood; your halo shines in sterile light it does me little good. Who decides what sane is? Who names me unwell? If I don’t fit your diagnosis, am I broken — or rebel? You crown yourselves as cures while I am tied in shame. Don’t tell me I am better just because you need the claim. Your Eyes blink in corners of every fragile day, watching lest I fracture or quietly slip away. Rats of thought inside the walls scratch along the seams; they gnaw at former purposes until they feel like dreams. They ask me, will you take the pills? Will you say you’re ill? Will you trade your jagged truth for something easier to fill? Who decides what sane is? What if the system’s wrong? What if the thing that claims to heal is what’s been choking all along? You can catalogue and keep me, file me, lock me still but something in me will not die, and something never will.

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Feb 9

Feb 9, 2026 at 9:00 PM UTC

MalcolmG

Antiseptic lights

I tell myself, can't see ahead, But my path is already drawn? A narrow line in antiseptic light that runs from dusk to dawn. Each morning bleeds from yesterday through walls too white to stain, and prophecy is nothing more than habit dressed as chain. I wake inside a measured room, where padded corners bloom, and silence hums fluorescent hymns against a vacant tune. Who decides what sane is? Who writes the rules for me? If healing feels like suffocating, is that recovery? You call this safety, call it care I call it slowly dying. Tie my hands, dim the lights, but you can’t stop me trying. A canvas binds my restless arms, fabric biting skin; they say it’s for protection I say it cages what’s within. Once I held a voice so clear like winter in the air, now it shatters into swallowed glass and settles into prayer. Save me, smiling martyr, step down from polished wood; your halo shines in sterile light it does me little good. Who decides what sane is? Who names me unwell? If I don’t fit your diagnosis, am I broken — or rebel? You crown yourselves as cures while I am tied in shame. Don’t tell me I am better just because you need the claim. Your Eyes blink in corners of every fragile day, watching lest I fracture or quietly slip away. Rats of thought inside the walls scratch along the seams; they gnaw at former purposes until they feel like dreams. They ask me, will you take the pills? Will you say you’re ill? Will you trade your jagged truth for something easier to fill? Who decides what sane is? What if the system’s wrong? What if the thing that claims to heal is what’s been choking all along? You can catalogue and keep me, file me, lock me still but something in me will not die, and something never will.