Insanity is a cracked drumstick
One which sharp splinters penetrate the skin
Salty tears begin to flood from silver eyes.
A drum beat turned sour
Flat like a funeral beat
Your pulse, a swallowed melody
And the whole time, your shoe of lead taps the kick pedal.

Trembling fingers tap the high hat
Yet not even a vague sound arrives
A drum beat isn’t much of a sound
More like a drug that digs deep beneath the skin
It’s crazy
The way you cuff your stiff, cracking hands over your ears
Yet you can still hear the faint tapping of sticks.

You’re too insane to be here
Or anywhere in fact
Because of the answers you lack
The white walls of sanity are quickly slipping from your trembling grasp.
You peel your pale skin back, thick red blood oozing through the opened gap.
You pick up cracked cymbals and throw them at walls
Destroying pictures of the faces you once loved.

The asylum is over flowing
Even the crazies can keep a better drum beat than you.
Black Sabbath beats tapped on invisible silver drums with your iron fists.

Your brain sits too damaged,
Too dead to play anymore

But something inside you won’t let you stop
Madness grips you with sharp talons
Tearing at the deep holes in your hands, bringing the smell of putrid rotting flesh
But still you grip those broken drum sticks
For the show must go on.