Still on No Man's Isle

I say this on a better day,
which means nothing has changed.
The ground is still thin.
I’m just standing more carefully.

I ask who I am,
if I am here,
if any of it was real.
That question isn’t madness.
It’s what’s left
when memory won’t settle
and still refuses to leave.

I keep returning to the word madness
because I want it to explain me.
But the truth is quieter:
pain learned to doubt itself
and called   that       sanity.

I wanted the Inside
to match the Outside
so the argument would stop.
Not because I wanted to be hurt,
but because being believed
felt impossible otherwise.

I wondered if the cruelty came
from the world
or from me.
Here is what I can say, today:
what was never named
turns inward.
That doesn’t make it unreal.
And it doesn’t make it mine.

I know this lucidity won’t last.
I know the questions will return,
louder, less patient.
This is how it goes.

But for this moment,
the darkness speaks clearly
instead of shouting.

I’m still on No Man’s Isle.
I haven’t crossed.
I haven’t fallen.

And for now,
that pause is

Enough.