Untreated Mental Illness
There is a hush no one can hear,
A breaking sound beneath the skin,
A fragile mind that disappears
While all the world goes rushing in.
It comes like dusk without a name,
Soft-footed through the light of days,
And dims the heart’s once steady flame
To ash that trembles in a haze.
The mother’s eyes grow tired and wide,
The father learns a wordless grief,
They stand beside what once was bright
And cannot summon its relief.
Love lingers at a bolted door,
Calling a soul that cannot stay,
Each answer fainter than before,
Each night more endless than the day.
And somewhere in the silent deep
A self is lost it cannot find,
While shadows gather, slow and steep,
Around the corridors of mind.
O tender life, so nearly whole,
How easily the thread is torn—
A wandering, unguarded soul
May wake in chains or not at dawn.
Yet still, beneath the weight of night,
A fragile pulse of morning lies—
If only hands could reach in time
To lift the darkness from its eyes.
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