Perspective

Look out in the starless night; towards the streets you dare not tread.

Leave your place of mental torment, and enter the world of someone else's.

The mad man on the corner; screaming loudly at ghosts only he can see.

I'm ashamed to say I sped up; I walked faster to get away.

He struck too close to home. He was too much like us all; like me.

'This is all I have left in the world'

Screamed at a faceless demon threatening his belongings.

Everybody stares. Nobody knows what to do. Some laugh. All fear.

There are places only the insane can go;

Except there are a few of us who have walked the line

And toed over into the face of obscurity and insanity

Before jumping back into the embrace of a house and a dream.

A dead dream. We don't hold our dreams.

The men on the street who followed their dreams

Will always be more successful than you. Than me.

Than those of us who are too afraid to try.

They may've failed, but they've seen more than our eyes, wide open,

Could ever hope to behold.

I stopped averting my eyes; I take their stories to heart.

I sit, and watch, as lonesome a creature in the night as they are.

While smoking my cigarette, aware that I am nothing more to them

Than a spot of ash and two gleaming eyes.

Never think you are different. You can find yourself in the man on the street,

The man asleep under a bridge,

The people in the cities where you fear to go,

because you fear turning out like them.

So avoid the nights if you must; avoid the howls of the damned and the tears of the tortured.

Put it all in perspective; what you can't see can't be real.

Pull the blankets over your head , And ward off your demons for as long as you can.