There’s a hallway they don’t write down on the maps,
where the bulbs hum secrets and the door knobs collapse.
Where the staff walk past like it isn’t even there,
and the cameras blink but never stare.
I found the room when I stopped being loud,
when I stopped asking why, and stopped standing proud.
They wheeled me in and shut the latch,
no name on the door. No file to match.
The lights flicker in sympathy for what I’ve become,
just bones in a chair, too tired to run.
They feed me on silence and pills without names,
and dream me away when the paperwork flames.
This is the room where they forget you exist,
no calls, no clocks, no wrists to twist.
No birthdays, no charts, no family list,
just the hum of the walls and a vanishing mist.
Sometimes I hear a nurse whisper my name,
but it echoes like it’s never the same.
Like I’m someone they made up once and erased,
like a stain on the fabric they couldn’t quite place.
I hum to myself just to prove I’m still real,
mark days in my head like a prayer I can feel.
But even my thoughts are starting to fade,
like crayons left out in the heat they made.
Maybe someday they’ll sweep through and see,
the dust that once whispered, “I used to be me.”
But for now I wait in fluorescent bliss,
in the room
where they forget you exist.