Asylum

We ran room

to room 

never knowing

whether to cheer 

or shout alarm.

Asylum walls scream

Locked doors,

empty corridors,

tiny windowless

space

Arms grasp

wrists,

labeled

with name,

ward,

malady

A lesson

authority

restraint

in a hell,

white and blank.

Angry faces

whose eyes, at last

freed from their cages,

devoured each child’s dream.