They speak to the madman,
Suppression, subversion, detraction,
A vocabulary of ‘less than’.
They speak to the madman,
To the loveless and the wounded,
The self-doubting ego.
They speak to the madman,
A consort of shadows,
Recurrent with paradox.
Until...uncertain as to the integrity of my own thoughts,
Understudied by self-censure and distrust,
I pause to listen in silence to the silence which listens back.
‘My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.’
- Khalil Gibran, The Madman