Madness Becomes You

Madness becomes you.

It goes with the smell of burning from the electric shock therapy. It goes with your faded frontal lobotomy scar cleverly hidden by an extended fringe of wiry hair, hair frizzed by electricity and drugs.

Your madness lies dormant for the moment, but always tensed, lurking behind glazed eyes that stare fixedly ahead, as a thin line of spittle oozes out of your slack, lipless mouth to trickle unhindered down your chin.

Your mouth is a gaping maw of nothing. You’ve chewed your lips off. Your beautiful white teeth removed to save you the torment of eating away more of your poor, abused self. The flesh of your lips is gone but they’ve left hard, rippled scar tissue where a pert and pouting mouth once called men to sample it's softness.

Madness becomes you.

It goes with the smell of stale urine wafting from unclean underwear. It goes with the faeces clinging to the stubs that twitch on your hands. Where are the fingers that once had long talonous nails painted bright red? Where are the fingertips that would stroke and tantalize with their caress? The nails have long since been bitten to the quick, but you didn't stop there. The fingers have been chewed away over years of insanity until only gnarled stumps remain.

And then they took your teeth.

Madness becomes you.

It goes with the jumbled, irrational thoughts that trample through your deranged mind. And it goes with the foul, inappropriate words that you take such a delight in screeching in the dead of night. It suits the words you mumble and the Nursery rhymes you chant. You remember what it was like to be normal, to be beautiful, to be charming and wanted. You remember and the memories of your sanity complement the madness.

You were so lovely before the days of straight jackets and crisp white linen. You were so sexy before the days of incontinence pads and bed baths under heavy sedation. You were so alive before the days of insanity.

She turned from the mirror, from a reflection with a chequered illusion. The checks that sectioned her face into sixty four squares are formed by a wire cage fixed over the mirror for her own protection. Her movements were sluggish and unsure as she recoiled from her tortured image through a haze of sedation.

She sang mournfully, ‘Madness becomes you, it goes with your hair.’ and then she cackled as she sat on the bed and rocked monotonously backwards and forwards.