They said we could submit "creative expressions" for Mental Health Week.
Poems.
Drawings.
Letters of healing.
They gave us colored paper and safety scissors.
Said they'd post it all on the big board in the main hallway — the one every patient passes before meds.
So I did what they asked.
Just not the way they expected.
---
I printed four pages.
No poetry.
No metaphors.
Just scans of patient files.
My own.
Celia's.
A list of twenty-three names marked "discharged" but never accounted for.
I titled it:
> "Where Did They Go?"
---
Isla watched me tape it up at 4:58 a.m.
By 5:15, the first nurse saw it.
By 5:21, three staff members were whispering in the hall.
By 5:28, the board had been stripped bare.
But I had already done it.
---
Because in the 30 minutes it was up,
every patient had seen it.
They didn't cry.
They didn't panic.
They stood still.
Reading.
Processing.
Breathing in proof like oxygen they'd been denied.
---
At 6:02 a.m., a nurse came to my room.
Said I was being "transferred."
Didn't say where.
Didn't let me pack.
Just held the door open.
---
But my bed?
It's still there.
Neatly made.
Unclaimed.
And on the pillow — someone wrote in sharp black pen:
> "She didn't vanish. She made noise."