the madness. [prelude]

There are the blues.

There are the mean reds.

And then there is the madness.

You cannot choose it.

It’s like an illness of providence.

Not mad in the sense of being a harm to yourself or others…

Not mad in the sense of creating your own reality…

But mad in the sense of being able, or rather willing to sit in the ache.

To find words to explain the feelings.

The highest of the highs…

The lowest of despondent lows…

And giving meaning and depth… making a song out of the rhythm of the every day.

Because it isn’t always these tiresome waves…

Waves of jubilee.

Waves of sadness.

Sadness.

That word just seems so mild.

When what you mean is something so incredibly cold that it burns…

And bones ache

Delirious with the feeling.

Every breath is agony.

But there’s this mark that your eyes are fixed on…

This deep intent to survive it.

To be still in the chaos… not to be part of it, or to allow it to become you…

Not to overpower it with anger.

But breathe through it slowly like labor pains…

Engulfing.

Trusting that there is something miraculous on the other side.

Trusting that you’ll be carried to the shore,

And find your feet again

Again

Again.

Again.

And so you sing your way through it

You give the pain a sound

You harmonize with the wailing

To make some beauty of the dark.

The madness…

Is my being thrown against the blackness of the sky

Being buried in the grief of midnight

And letting it crush me until I become a diamond

And my pain explodes into a hundred stars

To guide some weary eyes to a new dawn of hope.

It is hope singing in the middle of the night.

And so here I am.

It has eluded me.

I have run and run and run til I can run no more.

Put the day to bed…

And let me sing again.