They send your children there when they get too existential.

You won’t be allowed to see inside. It’s court-ordered, you know; it’s for everyone’s

sake. Bureaucracy is where innocence goes to die.

***

You’re carved out like a jack-o’-lantern,

Then stuffed full of sedatives and pills.

They exorcise your despair and put you in a haze-

Then accuse you of being the addict.

Caregivers ought not to be callous;

Too bad this is only a job.

We aren’t their kids,

And they aren’t our moms.

They don’t know what to do with us anyway,

So, for weeks we’re allowed to sit here and rot.

There’s excrement on the floors,

And the walls echo with verbal abuse,

‘Cause some kid tore out a security camera and is

Painting a portrait into his flesh

With the screws that held it in place.

They tell him he deserves this-because of the mess he’s made.

Here your trauma is a one-to-ten scale-

Your heartstrings stretched over a clipboard.

Stripped of individuality,

Offered some holy notes,

Watch the same sequel for the fiftieth time.The bills sent home prove this will be your breakthrough.

You’re given back all smiles, nihilism sloughed away.

Stitch your new face on so it won’t slip.