🐌 How Can I Determine Whether I Should Be Institutionalized 🐌 Poem by James McLain

When shadows stretch within my mind,
A web of doubts, a heart confined,
I wonder, in the silence deep,
If madness sings where reason sleeps.

The world beyond seems far away,
A dream that fades with each new day,
While voices whisper soft and cold,
Should I surrender, lose my hold?

My thoughts, they spin, they twist, they twine,
What once was clear now seems malign,
And yet, amidst this chaos wild,
I long to feel a calm that's safe.

But who can tell where lines are drawn,
Between the dusk and coming dawn?
Is it despair, or just a phase—
A passing storm, a fleeting haze?

O, if my soul could rest tonight,
In peace, beneath the soft moonlight,
I'd know that I could weather still,
The tempest that has cracked my will.