Lost Poem by Mary Champion

Have you ever experienced that fear -
the realization that you are lost -
completely lost, nothing familiar
in sight or hearing? Nothing has crossed
your mind that might locate you in some place,
somewhere that you could recognize and name.
You're totally detached in outer space,
cut loose without a reference for frame.
There's nothing you remember from before
and future is a word without meaning.
You reach for a foothold but can't be sure
that you can believe what you are seeing.
This is the stuff of nightmares dreamed by day,
the meanings of words are dislocated,
thoughts slip their synapses and float away.
Every word seems to be mistranslated.
Is this what madness means? Am I insane?
Unanchored now by reason, cast adrift?
This alien expanse, that was my brain,
has undergone a catastrophic shift.