The nurse smiled like she meant it
when she said, “You’re good to go,”
handed me a manila folder
with everything they think they know.
They packed my meds in a paper bag
and called me stable now,
but the wind hit different
when I crossed that final threshold somehow.
The sky looked wrong,
like it had moved just one degree,
and my name felt thin on my tongue,
not quite tied to me.
They said, “You’re ready,”
but my hands still shake when it rains,
and I still flinch when I hear my name
called in unfamiliar chains.
My discharge papers said “Improved”–
three times in blue,
but no one asked about the dream
where the hallway turns and chews.
No one checked my smile
when I said I’d be okay,
they just nodded, stamped the date,
and sent me on my way.
I was never cleared to leave–
just signed and waved along.
I passed the tests,
I played the part,
I didn’t hum the wrong song.
But there’s something still stitched to my spine,
something I can’t retrieve,
and no matter how far I run from it–
I know I was never cleared to leave.
I see the tiles even in my sleep,
white and humming low,
hear the voice from the west wing
whispering what it knows.
I walk free but not alone–
there’s a pulse that’s not quite mine,
trailing three steps behind me
in silence, every time.
I hear it breathing in my walls.
I see the hallway stretch in malls.
I taste the bleach in my coffee cup,
and no one looks when I freeze up.
Now I live in half-lit rooms
with doors that creak like guilt,
build pillow forts against the dreams
I left unbuilt.
And every morning when I wake,
I check my wrists and breathe–
just to prove again to no one
that I was never cleared to leave.