A SANE RESPONSE TO AN INSANE WORLD

My primal, child-deep emotions
Were my highly sane response
To a highly insane world.

I recognize that now.
But, of course, I couldn’t then.
That world was the only one I knew
In those child-deep years.

I don’t even know that
I thought myself, or my reactions, insane.
I do know that I didn’t feel
Anything.

That was the sanest reaction of all
To the most insane parts of that insanity.

Unfortunately, I never learned
To let go of that reaction,
Or that I could let go,
Let alone that letting go
Had eventually become the sane thing to do.

So, behind the adult mask
Was a once-sane ball of selfhood,
Not knowing that his internalized self,
Was now insane in an outside world,
Which itself saw just the adult mask,
Being carefully and vigilantly
Blocked from inner entry.