Catherine Heath
May 2020
She’s a madwoman,
On an adventure of the mind––
Running on rainbow roads,
Where nobody can go.
We are the Bloomsbury Group;
It’s me, and you.
Flying on the edge of genius––
Pitching into madness,
Wild with fun
(And that’s the way we like it).
We are thoroughly happy
To be free,
Just you, and me.
Drunk on life,
On love,
On laughter––
What more could anyone need?
Stay a child;
Don’t grow up––
But always pay your bills.
She’s a madwoman!
They cried.
They are all terrified,
And mesmerised.
No man gets left behind––
(He’s Harry Potter,
And we’ll come and get you).
We’ll slay the dragon;
Voldemort is left for dead––
Because the demon was inside you
All along.
We are connected to the earth––
The universe;
Can’t you feel it?
Frighteningly human,
In a world full of sheep;
It’s exactly what we need––
That’s why
I know madness when I see it.
I was locked in the hospital,
And asked him to marry me.
Surprisingly,
He said,
Alright.
We don’t know what to do with freedom;
We’d rather be enslaved.
We’d rather be
A slave to the wage,
And that’s the strangest thing to me.
I worship him;
He makes me wild with desire.
People think he might beat me,
But he would never touch me––
He’d kill anyone who tried.
The best men look like madmen;
How else would you tell the difference?
Like a woman possessed;
Possessed with passion––
That’s how you know
She’s the one.
Kissed with fire,
You do inspire
Me to commit
Acts of lunacy.
That’s why it’s very good
Not to care what anyone thinks of you,
(And then you will have a lot of friends).
Careless,
Ferocious,
Wild––
Why would we be any other way?
Why do we find the cure
For this malaise?
(Because
We love somebody
And we don’t want them
To be left behind.)
We dance wildly
Because we want to!
I never ask for permission––
I answer only
To myself.
Wild,
Ecstatic,
Delighted!
There is no magic potion;
We save ourselves
One ragged breath
At a time.
We numb ourselves,
And that’s how we save ourselves,
But I am always
Vibrantly alive.
You dreamed about Harry Potter,
But I dream of the Bloomsbury Group.
Men and women,
Dancing, thinking, screaming––
All of us
Are vibrantly
Alive.
That's how we cure mental illness––
We make everybody insane,
And I was just trying to cure myself,
Anyway.
Credit: Photo by Stephen Arnold on Unsplash
