A Lacquer Box of Paradox I have always been systematic About being idiosyncratic The shrink said it was symptomatic In the lockdown psych ward where I found out What my going mad was all about Before my eyes systematic and strange Words arise to surprise and arrange Themselves in symptomatic symmetry A book that looks like a lacquer box Of paradox is the thing that unlocks The mystery so she read it through To look for who I am by how I do What I do there in the in between By the end of the book I think she knew I was a little bit different About what yes I do obsessively Wondering how I did anything I think the shrink understood what I mean Glad she undertook to look and see And understand the thing that makes me sing To be a good thing ultimately We got along so well she had me stay A little longer and when I went I had been somewhere they knew what I meant As what I had to go mad to be Understood though paradoxically In a way she threw the book at me Wrote me up out of my mind all the way But read what I wrote down anyway In sympathy symptomatically She said I would be welcome back someday Steven Curtis Lance