Mental State Poem by Tigers Dancing

How do you know when you
are going mad?
When what is in your head is not what is?
When what you see and hear cannot be touched?

People say, ‘I think I'm going mad! '
They rarely mean it.
In a way they demean it;
the mentally inaccurate state
of madness.

Madness is not leaving your keys in the door;
it is not checking things are off fourteen times -
or is it?

Obsession. Compulsion. Where does that lead?
‘Call me crazy', but only if I'm not, please.

For the truly crazy, there is no point of reference
against which they are lost.
All of life is but an inference made
from a set of indeterminate clues;
from a crossed out list, from news
from what you say
from a face you don't know, but should.
From a time when you remember
everything made sense.

Right now, you're on the fence.

The lunatic.
The daughter of the moon.
The howling wolf, the slender man
The bending spoon.

Is everyone just bluffing?
Perhaps it all began
when you looked around at where you'd been
and recognised nothing.