White Halls

By Samuel McConochie

They called me wrong—just a mind trapped inside sterile bone,

where buzzing fluorescents hum in metronome,

my suffering dragged out in slow, mocking machine beep,

just a specter in the system—the forgotten, unseen, unheard sheep.

Then called me anxious, suicidal, in a diagnosed medical cage,

words from white coats, apathetic judgment on their page.

They boxed me in whispers, psych wards of doubt,

while my body screamed truths they dared not shout.

“I felt my brain snap,” I said, still shaking in pain,

as they handed false scripts, pills sold for gain.

These nerds, these doctors, sold out to the bribe,

while my thoughts fought, never truly free, never alive.

Scan after scan, nurses’ needles draw blood to my prayer,

a cruel circus of tests, no rational answers anywhere.

Death whispered close, twice it brushed my door,

while they called me crazy—my veins collapsed to the core.

Their science was broken, a golden bull in china shop,

crashing and thrashing with every catheter or IV drop.

If they’d looked, if they’d listened, if they’d dared to believe,

I’d still be whole—breathing calm, still free to grieve.

Now I haunt white halls, was my time meant so brief?

While a shadow drags down a system’s cold, sharp teeth.

The echoes of failure ring loud in dead air,

a body broken, left gasping for care.

Adrift through nauseous corridors—pores sweat on frozen flight—

a ghost carved from silent inaction, swallowed by night.

Forgotten my cries wrapped in layers of protected denial,

my story, your warning—just paperwork in a pile.

By Samuel McConochie