No Man’s Isle

I have fell astray,
far from the beaten path,
off the cliff of No Man’s Isle,
straight to the depths of Tartarus.

I would say like a fallen angel,
not like I was ever close to that.
But if there were even a fallen demon,
someone falling lower than low,
I would probably be it.

I am my destruction.

I have fell astray,
bathed in the destruction of my soul,
deep red, dried blood painted on me,
madness in my eyes.

Who am I,
am I here,
is this real,
was anything ever real?

Sometimes I fall into a darkness
without warning,
and everything I remember feels altered,
as if life happened behind glass
and I am only now questioning
whether any of it truly touched me.

Am I a victim
whose persecution came from the world
or herself?
Which is truly worse?

Men learn cruelty early,
and call it desire,
call it love.
Something shifted
before I knew how to name myself,
before meaning settled into words,
and what remained was folded into silence,
called misunderstanding,
called nothing.

Should I succumb to madness
Madness, madness, madness
Am I mad,
are  you  mad,
aren’t   we   all,
what       is            mad?

I want to scratch myself,
make myself bruised, bleeding,
lacerations, abrasions,
let the Inside match the Outside.

For if I’m hurt,
will people actually see me and care,
or should I just be left to despair?

And somewhere along the way,
the question stops being only mine.

We wonder if giving up is weakness
or honesty.
We wonder if we even have the right
to be tired,
or if we are just being dramatic
because others learned to endure quietly.

We ask whether staying is courage
or habit,
whether leaving is surrender
or finally telling the truth.

Am I Medusa,
turned monstrous by the way I was looked at,
punished for surviving
what should never have been claimed,

or are we standing together
at the edge of No Man’s Isle,
afraid that stepping back means
It was never real,
and afraid that stepping forward means
It was.