Madman Diaries

 I.

And so it began. Running wild,
homeless and bereft of belongings,
came the wild-eyed stranger—
no, strange man. No stranger
to the best of us, not a man
hasn’t felt that blind running.

The wild eyes captured all.
Framed by the rest of his face,
by those greasy curls, sweat-laden
and seeming to tremble with hopeless
energy even as they flew—
a thousand trails to his eyes.

Those two black holes, pulling in
everything but giving nothing.
Bounding, stumbling, flinging himself
headlong anywhere,
those eyes became still as the world
careened wildly about them.

We watched him go. Shook heads, slowly
creaked back into gear, pitied the man
with nothing going for him but speed.
Speeding towards nothing, speeding
from everything, just ragged breaths
and a thousand old ghosts.


II.

They introduced us on my first day.
It felt like I was shaking hands with
one of the vises on the workbench,
for all the character he showed.
Stitched to his cigarette,
bolted to his bottles, sliding along

slotted tracks in the floor. Monotony,
repetition, firmly within the bounds
of his comfort zone, that monk’s black cell.
Just diamond-plate skin,
hydraulic muscles, carbon veins
and that black hole inside.

Things crush a man. The daily grind
curls his hands, the brightest star
in the galaxy implodes, darkens,
leaves that permanent sucking void
inside his chest, tearing him down
from the inside, Gothic abutments razed.

No wonder he died of a heart attack.
The tight dull pain in his chest
was just worse than usual that day.
They figure he sighed, took two aspirin
and a shot of whiskey, put on his hat,
and shuffled bent into oblivion.


III.

The waif lies dying in her bed.
She smiles, taut lips drawn back
to show teeth more bone-white
than what already shines through
the papery skin of her bald head.
I watch with silent eyes across the room.

The doctor asks questions.
She answers with stitches
wrapped tight around the void—
but it threatens to break free,
to burst through the oilcloth
she’s woven around it. It will

wash her frail self away in the maelstrom,
sucking her into that pitiless black hole.
Each day stitches burst,
and she’s all but lost the battle to keep
the nothingness from overwhelming her.
Stitch-stitch, snap-burst, replace.

You can see the panic shining through the calm,
as clear as her skull. She’s translucent,
transparent. The doctor hesitates,
broaches a subject with such concern
she can grasp onto it, a lifeline thrown
as the black hole breaks free underneath.