Avery
Blank white walls.
White chair rail and pink and blue stripes.
Cold wooden floors and creaking silence of the rocking chairs.
Bare feet, scratched legs,
Pitter-patter their way across.
Glass dolls and soft brushes.
Scritch-scratch drawings at every bedside.
Twelve beds lined up.
White sheets, white pillow.
White children.
Girls Mental Ward reads the door.
Humming sounds the corner.
Creatures crawling on the floor
and up the walls and doors.
Can’t catch them and can’t get away.
Dust bunnies beneath the bed.
Safety from the things.
Blackened eye and bruised arms.
There it is again.
I can see the kite flying.