Schedule of the Broken Minors

Breakfast

Personal exercises

Homework

Lunch

Checking Vitals

Mario Kart

Drawing

the laughing stops as the sun sets

Dinner

Bedtime

Screaming

Crying

patients throwing their heads against a wall

listening to the echoing pleas of broken desperation

the 6-year-old in the room to my right yelling that he’ll never attack his mom again

this is the Pediatric Psych Ward’s daily schedule

this was a week in a hell the devil himself couldn’t create

and after 3 years, I still can hear the other broken children