Be Yourself

by Ian Mullins

Being mad doesn’t bother me;
I’ve lived with it so long
it’s as comfortable as a cold
duvet. As soon as I feel that chill
I know I’m almost home,

and to tell the truth I’m usually glad
to be there; it’s the only place
in my head where I truly feel
alone. The parts of my skull
I share with the sane world
are where I feel colonised
and abused: the mere fact
that I know how to do my job
is a source of great distress
to me. I resent the knowledge
my brain has to hoard
when it needs all the space it can earn
for dreaming and poetry,
all the imaginary lives
I secretly believe are more real
than a day-to-day life so hateful
and absurd it can only be
a symptom of a mental illness
all the world is heir to;

perhaps a virus, some shameful relic
of a dead planet that crash
-landed into this one
when the earth was hot soup
slowly cooled by celestial
breaths: imaginary lives
whose realness is guaranteed
by the fact that we dream them,
that they cannot be polluted
by the virus we spread
whenever we open our mouths.

Oh come and be mad, my friends!
Come and be mad.