Once I heard a story
And the moral was:
Things fall apart
The centre cannot hold.
At the time I thought it profound
But I didn�t understand it.
I thought going insane
Was like a whirlpool.
But a whirlpool has a centre
While chaotic, it remains organized.
Going insane
Is much more than chaos.
Going insane is when
Parts of you drop away.
Your consciousness, your memories,
Your understanding of the world.
The centre of your being becomes unstable,
Like a table with three legs.
The marbles on the table roll wildly,
As the table pitches and yaws.
Things fall apart,
The centre cannot hold.
Pieces of you drop away
They don�t come back
Even if you do.
Copyright OBK 10/30/2006
Author's note: While the quoted lines originates with Yeats' "The Second Coming" I first encountered them in Chinua Achebe"s Things Fall Apart.
