Brainwash
They wiped my thoughts
with antiseptic hands,
wrung my mind through linen logic
and hung me between breakfast
and scheduled silence.
Every hour—accounted for.
Every spark—neutralised.
Brainwashed.
Hope came in timed doses—
measured in milligrams
and dispensed with a paper cup
and plastic smile.
I swallowed the sun in tablet form
until it glowed from the inside
like a malfunctioning lamp.
Brainwashed.
I used to speak in fractured gold,
each sentence a riddle
spun from starlight and defiance.
They taught me to speak correctly—
which meant quietly,
which meant not at all.
Brainwashed.
They dressed me in fabric
the colour of pause,
stitched my name
into the hem of conformity,
taught me not to wander
outside the red line
of permissible imagination.
Brainwashed.
They made me fill in boxes:
Do you still hear them?
Do you still dream strange?
Do you still think
you are more than
this?
I circled no, and smiled.
Brainwashed.
My mirror stopped recognising me.
It showed a still ocean
where once there were storms.
I waved—but my reflection
had better things to do
than remember who I was
before routine became religion.
Brainwashed.
But some nights—
when the world forgets to monitor me,
and the ceiling isn’t watching—
I find poems hidden
under my tongue,
fierce and unprescribed.
I whisper them backwards
to keep them safe.
Still writing.
Or so they think.
Because inside the silence,
beneath the disinfected compliance,
something unwashed pulses—
raw, brilliant,
and unfinished.
I remember.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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