The Madness

It’s easy to be the calm
When rage was born beneath me
And her wrath and fury
Were always in comparison to my own docile demeanor

In the moments when her darkness rises highest
The only way to survive her
Is to be the flame long enough to burn away
At the sharpness of her edges
To ease her back into retreat

It’s easy to be the one who mediates the balance
Between what’s in her head
And what’s in theirs
It’s easy to be the light they gravitate towards
When she is the darkness they fear
To be strong
When she is the weak
To make sense of the mess that has become her
When it all spins wildly out of control

It’s easy to understand the insanity she carries
When that same irrationality cultivates in my own quiet mind from time to time
And when she isn’t there to compromise it
It expresses itself without boundary
Without her beside me
I become the rage
I become the unpredictable, the unstable

Without her there to contrast me,
By default, I become her
I don’t have the white again black
To offset the sanity
Against insanity
In my own mind

She is the dark
That creates my light
The lucidity
That creates my own lucidness
I see myself in her therefore I control the nature of my derangement
Before it escapes me
But when rage seeks rage
There is only darkness

Without her beside me
I alone, am the one fighting to find the light within myself

Without her beside me
I
Am
The
One
Fighting

Without her madness
To contradict my sanity
My own madness finds no reason to hide
And releases, unashamed

Without someone to guide
I become unguided
I become deaf to the words I've memorized
In order to keep my flame burning away at her edges

And I don’t even notice just how sharp
My own have become