A gladness sparks in me,

A fragment of madness,

A particulate of joy.

It is a small thing, a tiny thing, elemental, wild, tremulous, and fragile.

There is frost on my heart, a crackling coldness at the edges,

spiderweb cracks reaching hungry fingers inward.

The spark, it warms me, pushes at the edges of the ice.

Whence comes this gladness?

Whence, the mad fragment?

Whence, the fractal iota of joy?

I know not,

I know only that it judders and shakes inside me,

singing a nearly silent song,

trembling in the shadows of my soul.

Does it come from the cool breeze on my skin,

which awakens some shiver of memory?

Does it come from the shiver of memory itself,

from the slither of knowing

coiled deep in my fallow, fertile mind?

If Memory slithers, it is a silent, sneaking serpent,

Which craves to remain unfound.

But the slither, I feel it,

I feel the glide of scales,

feel the smooth skin in hints,

feel the questing hiss of the tongue.

Memory is a serpent,

And I seek it in the tall grasses,

watch the grass as it moves against the wind,

evidence of that which I seek.

Is it thence from which comes the spark of gladness?

I think no.

Because it is a false joy.

Think of the madman,

clad in straitjacket and chains,

howling in his padded cell.

He laughs, does he not?

He ululates, and drools, and gibbers.

But through it all, he laughs.

A wild cackle.

A crazed guffaw.

A manic chortle.

Thus am I.

Minute by minute,

Hour by hour,

Day by day,

Week by week,

Month by month,

I sit in this be-damned imprisoning chair,

rickety, ancient, and creaking,

staring at the swaying palms,

suffering the heat, batting at flies.

Scribbling.

Hoping my scribbles will form a net,

which will ensnare that wily serpent:

Memory.

I cast my net wide.

I weave it with strands of madness,

Threads of fiction,

Filaments of truth,

All part of the warp and weft of my tapestry,

Which is my net.

Which is all that I am, all that I have of myself,

whatever sense of self I possess

in this mad, waiting time.

So,

This spark of gladness…

What is it?

It is momentary, at best.

Easily devoured by the cold,

Drowned in the shadows

Which obscure my mind.

I want to cup that spark in my hands,

frame it with my palms,

protect it, nurture it.

Breathe gently upon it,

catalyze the spark into a flame,

Fan the flame into a blaze,

Pour accelerant on the blaze,

Make it a pyre,

A wildfire,

An inferno,

Brighter than the sun, hotter than an African noon,

So bright it sheds light upon me, banishing the shadows,

Illuminating the serpent,

Which is named Memory.

I wish to be free of this place.

Rise from this wheeled chair which is my prison,

Free from the plaster binding my arms and my legs,

Free from the pain in my ribs,

Free from the throbbing emptiness of my knowledge of self,

Free to venture forth,

And find

ME.

Find the ruins of the life I led,

And resurrect them.

Rebuild them.

Or, failing that,

Build anew.