They chained me to the iron bed, yet claimed it for my good,
And smiled as though their mercy might restore what madness could.
I spoke of clear perception, of memory pure, intact—
But every white coat listening marked my reason as abstract.

One took my pulse with trembling hands, his stare too wide to blink,
He said my fragile sanity was hanging by the thinnest link.
He swore he’d seen the shadows slip beyond the ward’s cold end,
Then scrawled my fate in crimson, grinning, “I’ll ensure you mend.”

A second came scribbling on charts, his voice a solemn hymn,
He diagnosed my clarity as folly, as the wardlights flickered dim.
His badge read “Saint Perception,” with embroidered benediction,
He praised my lucid reasoning—then tripled my prescription.

A third arrived in borrowed shoes, his coat was torn and gray,
He ordered I be tranquilized for reasons he’d not say.
He muttered of conspiracies that prowled the sterile floors,
Then scrawled his prophecies and warnings on walls that all ignored.

The fourth declared, “You’re lucid, sir, but bound by unseen bars.”
He promised swift release should I reveal my hidden scars.
When I obeyed, he wept aloud, and trembled at my touch—
Then whispered, “They’ll bury me for showing you too much.”

A fifth came proud with trembling chin, his gaze both sharp and sly,
He flapped his arms as if he were a bird, and asked if I knew how to fly.
He wrote a note declaring I was free from mad extremes,
Then folded it into a fragile bird to cradle all my dreams.

A sixth physician’s laughter murmured like some dark master,
He quizzed me on the voices I remembered from my disaster.
He said he’d write an article to prove that I was sane—
Then vanished mid-conclusion, like footsteps drowned by rain.

A seventh waved a rosary and sniffed the sterile air,
Insisting that the staff were ghosts and none of them were there.
He knelt before my bedside, kissed the restraints around my knees,
And whispered, “Pray they never learn we share reality’s disease.”

And still they come—these doctors, proclaiming with their hands,
Each diagnosing madness no mortal understands.
The bleakest wisdom I’ve learned is entombed within these institutional shells:
The greatest madness lingers just outside these padded cells.