Not Crazy But Mad

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They aren’t crazy

It isn’t that.

That’s how they look, with their

broken glass stare and brass face and all,

and the way they stand,

upright, unbending, unyielding,

not a cower in them,

but no, they aren’t crazy.

Not crazy, but mad.

They’re young,

unburnt and unsullied yet,

but they can see their world

melting all around them,

along with their half-thought hopes

and their unseen dreams

and their imaginary chances

and their little joys.

Makes them a little mad,

and I don’t blame them.

It did for me.

I lived in a time like this time,

a time when I had

no job, no money, no nothing

going for me.

I did then some of what

some of them do now,

drink and drug, hump and thug,

whatever comes along, just to make it

easier, though it makes it

harder in the end.

In the end, I gave up

the madness

and got normal.

And they will too.

They will family, eventually.

They will grow up, move on,

make something happen.

Or happen not.

But they will never forget

what it was like

being mad.

I rather liked it.