Invisible line.

Insanity is, after all, ugly. Even when it wears a mask of beauty. Much like death, try as we might to make it appealing, is always hideous, madness has no control over it's appearance. Once you see it behind intricately painted veil of porcelain, you will never be able to lose the memory of how disgusting was it's face, especially compared to what you have always believed it looked like. Losing my mind always seemed like something i was willing to try, if even for a short while. How wonderful it must be to feel completely free, not care what people around you may think or say, ignoring the sideway glances, no, not even ignoring but being completely oblivious to them, getting lost within your own twisted mind, wondering dark streets and alley-ways of imagination gone astray. Things that never existed before coming to life before my eyes, beings who had always refused to talk to me and even simply hid away so that i could not even catch a glimpse of their ghostly silhouettes, now greet me with open arms, embracing me with cold only grave may match. That is how i used to think. Until i lost my mind.
How and when it happened, i could not tell, though often i wonder still about that. What was the breaking point and what led to it. Worst of all is that i wonder if i actually am insane. Not far behind is the fact that i'm not sure any longer if i had dreamt the life before i went mad or if it was all for real and there was another, different life. Colors and shape dance in a wild stomp around me, reminding me of shamans entering trances so that they could talk to spirits, cross the invisible line between the worlds and descent into what most could only imagine. And sometimes i think i hear music coming from behind the walls of my home i built in the forest behind my house. I achieved what i longed for, and escaped humanity in the process. Leaves and bark fed me, grass and wild mushrooms, and morning dew slaked my thirst when i ran out of wine i made of wild animal's blood. Just as well, for i no longer needed alcohol to enter the state of mind where the bizarre seemed to take a step back, and allow for a brief period of silence inside my head. Absence of sound. It never lasted long, but i was grateful even for the short-lived relief from constant hammering on the walls of my skull, rail spikes of thoughts being driven deep into my brain, grinning faces of my torturers dripping blood and saliva and love from their toothsome mouths. How i lusted after them, my jailors, my captors, executioners, lovers, judges, those beautiful beings with bloody stumps where wings used to be. I remember still how they cried when i tore off their wings and laughed at their pitiful cries of anguish and pain, drinking deeply of their torment, just like what they have been doing to me ever since. My just reward and punishment all in one.
Sometimes i paint pictures of how i dream things used to be. Though every time i finish a painting, i burn it, not because i wish to forget or to escape, but simply because it is cold and the fuel is scarce in here, for the trees will not allow me to gather even their dead limbs to sustain myself in winter that seems to never end around my home. But a dozen feet away is my old house, warmth and light and cheerful laughter spilling through a window, and teasing aromas of cooking food, and sounds of life i used to love and cherish and defend and fight for. How far away that all seems to be now, even when it is just out of my reach. I wish i could go back, but afraid to get lost on the way there, and no longer be able to even look at my memories of happiness long gone and left behind but never forgotten. I'm content here, neither happy nor unhappy. Drifting, waiting for nothing in particular, one day at a time, each new one is just like the one before, nothing changing. Only sadness sometimes left behind by dreams, like footprints in a fresh layer of snow that are to be gone by the morning.
Crossing the line was not easy. Letting go was dull. Search for something new is too exhausting. I can't stay, and i can''t leave here, i have no place to go and no-one to wait for me were i to head for the middle of nowhere. Pointless would be such a journey, and meaningless the motivation to make it. My mind is slipping away, like water through my fingers, no way to stop it from happening. Perhaps i am not yet crazy, but search for the truth is beyond me. I will just stay here until the end of my days and await whatever fate brings me, for i no longer seem to care.