The notion of madness is always lurking,
A black shadowman, a wailing banshee,
A folklore Hide-Behind. It is the ball and
Chains and I’m the Christmastime ghost –
The holidays are always especially, after all.
There is an uncertainty in whether or not
It was born spontaneously, or the product of a cursed person from a wicked family.

There was a face in the trees today,
Round and green like an oak life.
He did not meet my gaze, just scowled off
Into the distance, his head a round bulb
Of a nose and frown like a dead fish
Pulled from the deep to the surface.

When I was 20, some switch flipped on
In my brain and I started screaming and
Crying at random because it felt like I was going
to die, like everything was awful, and
I could not sleep.
I started to see dark, wiggling lines
In my room, or crawling shapes in the corner
Of my eyes.
I took pills to knock me unconscious for 14 hours.

I still don’t know if that was just destiny, or the result of a stressful school schedule.

The green man went away and no matter
How hard I try to find him in the patterns
Of the leaves, I cannot find him again.