Lunacy

There must be some way

to drink down

lunacy.

To enjoy it in long sips

like a fine black tea

or a glass of wine.

Most of my life,

I have tried to hide from it,

keeping my head down,

scared turtle-like

hoping it would pass over me,

like some weird cumulus cloud

on its way to somewhere else.

But that has never worked.

When I feel lunacy coming near me

my body stiffens,

as if someone had poured green slime

down my back.

I feel the cold on my neck and the sick feeling

settling into my stomach.

I walk around the house unable to turn my head,

unable to get out of the way of future assaults. 

When someone asks me about it,

I want to say, “It isn’t me.   I’m not the one.

These aren’t my people.”

But that’s a lie.

I come from lunacy.

It is as much a part of me

as the mole on my right hand,

or my jagged fingernails,

the ones I have bitten down to the quick,
just like my mother.