Madness

I’ve got to get out of this asylum
Before I go completely mad
Everyday I stumble through
the same space
Desperate for a way out
But it seems I just walk in circles
Around and around and around

Madness is waiting
With abundant patience
Waiting to pounce
Waiting for one slip
One fall
One moment of lapse
To devour its prey
Namely me

I have spent many years contemplating madness
And to this conclusion I have come
It’s not the madness you have to fear
It’s the getting there that’s the torture
Because once you’re mad
You’ve no clue that you’re mad
So there’s no more madness
In the madness

Which leads me to this dilemma
Do I give into the madness
To stop the torture
Or live with the torture
Rather than to give in to the madness
And is it madness
to live with the torture?

sc2011

Tagged poetry, Shelli Carlisle