MADHOUSE POEM: Hysteria Falls in Sane, in Love

Hysteria Falls in Sane, in Love

by Stephanie M. Wytovich

 

Love.

Ha, love is insanity.

And if it’s not, then it’s not love…not really, and let’s be honest with each other—you know,
the kind of honest that people don’t like to hear—madness is love because you don’t go mad
unless you’re driven with passion, with obsession, with the kind of adoration that
makes you want to rip out your heart,
tear off your flesh and succumb to any type of pain, threat, or death
for the benefit of someone else.
 
If you’re not going crazy, if you’re not confused,
if you’re not losing your mind,
then it’s not love,
and if it is,
then it’s no kind of love that I want
because the strongest kind of love, is the honest kind of love,
and everyone has their demons,
scratching, clawing, and killing them from the inside out.

Love,
 

Ha, love is hysteria.
It’s uncontrollable emotion, a maelstrom of past-present-future pain
that one person can’t handle alone. It’s unfair and it’s normal, and then it’s
not okay and beautiful. It makes no sense and the mind—the mind—stops working
(if it’s ever even worked before) and the invisible crazy that sinks into your heart,
that makes it beat fast like that around him…that’s it. That’s the mania,
that’s the love, the madness we’re all looking for.