right in the thick of the best years of a girl’s life
when what she wants and what she needs come close enough to what she has
to breathe joy into every waking moment
in the thick of it, madness sets in
sets in so heavily so surreptitiously
that it creates a chasm
an unidentifiable emptiness a deep blackness void of sense that she cannot express or name or even locate
let alone avoid
creates a chasm that starts a skip in the record
things she knows she knew keep getting lost in the dark dropped without a sound into this betrayal of her own mind’s making each step has equal opportunity
to land in clarity or confusion
learn and forget and learn and learn and then…
what she immediately recognizes
as a warning cannot be heeded
instead it catalyzes a long latent mixture of curiosity and arrogance and push…
in her mind it looks like adventure on her face it looks like bravery
on the page it looks like lunacy
and she knows she knows better but the blackness lends better to the whim and disguises it as challenge
and madness does not bend to challenge
instead it evolves and manifests creates a thirst, silo and a prison
for submission, wrath and compassion
when we apply 8th grade math
12th grade science and grad school philosophy these factors produce only one outcome tenacious and unbridled honesty
barring not a single hold
and with that the joy returns
out of the black despite the black
to spite the black
and whether its denial or acceptance
it’s done
and the madness subsides
emotional husbandry cultivating joy with pain with truth…
truth that sheds just enough light
on the chasm
to see the devil’s shame
spirit@peace&joy@hand 