Stigma lyrics

Mental illness keeps a stigma

Its presence transmitting fear

The teetering edge of balance

Leaning way back in a chair

All men have its capacity

Manifesting itself at times

Often awakening in age

Insanity is but an extreme

Each person has odd quirks

Behaviors nonsensical seen

Superstitions illogical reason

The distance is so very short

When mental illness explodes

In desperation to make it stop

Hopelessness chokes the soul

Life loses its value for all

Lashing out at others mistook

Slashing in to end the guilt

Defined criminal by society

Confined and banished away

Lives lived instituted apart

Inborn instincts intertwine

With learned behaviors too

Autonomous conduct free

An amalgamation combined

Its voice shouts out to heed

Sometimes without awareness

Others known and directed

The stigma, the mysterious

In humans breeding fear

Cued to react like prey animals

Running away from a threat

The world of dreams comes

Inescapable realm of senses

A realm exposing the mind

Interventions within self

It is in our sleep we all find

Pleasures and true terrors

Epiphany and bewilderment

Fragility that consigns men

How then when we awaken

Emotions overflowing pour out

Culmination of experiences

Teaching empathy for others

Someone out there loves them

Loved them, forsaken, alone

Misunderstood and maligned

Feel their desperation, existing