Touched By Madness
In a day when mental illness
was hidden behind a closed door,
A young girl lived but wished to die;
she couldn't take it anymore.
No one knew the pain she suffered;
always wondering how it would end.
Would God see her great distress
and take her to Him; this hell transcend?
Her own father was the madman,
however normal he would seem.
Sometimes he lost the softness
and, from within, came a demon's scream.
Wild and void of all emotion,
his eyes unfocused and confused;
he beat his daughter almost senseless,
for what she never was accused.
Her mother made up some transgression
to have her daughter pay the price
for being closest to her father
whenever he was lucid and nice.
She loved her father dearly
and could never understand
why he turned on her so suddenly
as if, programmed to raise his hand.
One day her father, in a frenzy,
beat her head against the wall.
She just went limp in his arms;
gave up the fight to survive at all.
The words she remembers shouting
as she began to slip away:
"Go ahead and kill me!
I don't want to live this way."
His mouth dropped open as he
came to, almost as if to awaken.
He charged out of the room,
the both of them clearly shaken.
He never touched anyone again.
Perhaps, he learned a lesson.
His strange behavior was explained years later.
He suffered from manic depression.
Today we recognize the symptoms
and treat it with a special drug.
No longer should mental illness
be swept beneath a dirty rug.
As an adult, the girl is compelled
to do what she knows is right:
to bring a painful childhood memory
from darkness into healing light.
January 10, 2018
Copyright © Jan Terry | Year Posted 2018
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