The Maze in Wonderland

Trapped between reality and madness, I find myself spiraling deeper into a world of illusion—where every question becomes a cage and every answer, a lie. This is a labyrinth of my own making, a place where freedom is only a fleeting echo, and truth is a distant memory.

I am shackled by this illness,

a slow poison that blooms in my chest.

They say a genius and the insane are one—

repeating, believing, returning.

But why can’t I escape

this prison of steel I built with trembling hands?

Why can’t I claw my way out of suffocation?

I am trapped in this cage of my own making,

a fortress of steel around my mind.

If genius and madness are twins,

and I, the fool, am proof—

returning to the same pain,

the same questions,

the same empty hope.

Why do I think his voice holds freedom?

Why do I rattle his cage knowing full well his roar,

asking questions I know will pierce me deeper?

Why do I beg, like a child clinging to dreams,

when my mind knows the truth?

Why do I reach for him,

as if his hands hold keys,

when they only hold knives?

Why do I never remember he was the lover with the teeth,

And I was the one with the heart?

He spits cold laughter in my face,

mocking my frail hope as if to silently say—

What did you expect?

He mocks the hope I clutch like a lifeline.

His voice slices like glass,

his words stained with cruelty,

a precision meant to cripple me.

He always shoots for my heart and never misses.

Still, I shake him.

Still, I whisper:

You’re not like this, right?

You can’t be this way… right?

You aren't so cruel, right?

You don't enjoy seeing me suffer, right?

But I know.

I know the demon he’s become,

or maybe always was.

Yet my eyes betray me,

painting wings where there are none,

a halo over shadows.

Why do I still see light

when he stands before me,

the knife dripping red with my name?

As he instead, gives me all the blame

And creates his own fiction as I still try with my last life force to understand him.

Still, I see an angel where a demon stands,

his hands stained with my blood,

his gaze cold as winter.

Why can’t I see him for what he is?

Why does my heart cling to the lie of him,

when it would be easier to let go?

I wish I could unentangle myself from him

And cut himself off of myself even though he occupies more than half of it.

Why do I care for a man

who takes pleasure in tearing me apart?

Why do I care?

Why do I keep the piece of me

that loves him,

when all it does is twist the blade?

Why do I yearn for the love of a man

Who has none in his heart?

Why do I want the softness from someone as bitter as iron?

Why do I gaze up at him like a King when he looks down like I'm like his slave?

I want to rip that part of me away,

the one that still loves,

still forgives for the unjust suffering and accusations he put me through,

still aches for the ghost of who he could have been.

I am mad with the weight of my questions,

spiraling in a storm of how’s and why’s,

while he haunts my sleep each night—

an architect of nightmares,

master of cruelty,

dark, deliberate, calculated,

showing me every way he can hurt me,

and watching as I break.

He shows me where it hurts most

and doesn’t stop there.

He keeps whispering poisonous, cruel things in my ear.

And sometimes I can't remember if I hallucinated some things.

Even his name sets me shaking.

Still, I crawl to him,

searching for answers

he doesn’t have,

or maybe he does,

but he won’t share.

Still I eagerly extend my hand on the cliff so he can hold onto it and climb up

Knowing he would toss me into the abyss as soon as he does.

I tell myself this silence is mercy.

Maybe this, too, is kindness.

He didn’t wield his truths to shatter me again, not this time.

I don't know why my mind keeps forming ways to make him an angel

While he plots his ways to make me look like a witch.

Even now, his name is a thunderclap in my chest,

a tremor in my bones.

Still, I went to him.

Still, I begged.

And his silence, this time, was mercy.

Perhaps he still wants to save me—

not from the world,

but from the monster he’s chosen to be.

That’s what it has to be, right?

Perhaps he didn’t answer

because even his truths

are daggers.

I tell myself this was kindness,

a fractured gift from a man

who wears cruelty like armor.

Maybe he’s saving me—

not from the world,

but from the wreckage he’s become.

From his honest answers that would be mortal weapons,

That my sanity wouldn't able to take it in.

Even now, his name makes my heart race,

makes my hands shake from love and from fear of him.

Still, I was insane enough to go to him,

searching for answers,

as if he would ever give me any.

Searching for the tiniest affection from one human to another,

But he only spit in my face every time and laughed.

And when I’ve had enough,

when my silent retreat becomes my only voice,

I walk away from him, each step heavier than the last,

my heart weighed down with the quiet ache of knowing.

I don’t want to look back—

why would I?

No one's waiting, he has already left.

And yet, when I turned around quietly, I feel his unblinking gaze,

like a phantom weight, burning into my back.

Madness whispers in my ear—

am I imagining this?

Is it the shadow of hope playing tricks?

Or is he watching, calculating,

plotting every move with cruel precision?

And then, like a tide surging back,

I find his eyes meeting mine.

My mind spins, Charybdis swallowing me whole.

Is this real?

Or another illusion he’s crafted,

another thread to unravel my sense of self?

His mocking smirk gives me no answers,

only leaves me dangling, desperate.

I try to run, to escape the spiral,

but before I can, his hand grips my wrist,

initially iron-bound, unyielding and then surprisingly gently.

What does this mean—this grasp that halts me mid-flight?

He never offers me answers but keeps looking straight into my soul,

but asks what do I think of this in an amused voice like it's a guessing game.

Is it cruelty? Is it control?

Or some echo of the man I once thought he was,

the one I still foolishly search for,

lost among the wreckage of him?

Now I know the truth:

the answers never lie with him.

He can’t free me.

Even if he held the key in his hand,

he would never open the door to let me out.

I have to write my own answers for I will never get any from him.

But even then, in the quiet,

my sanity dangles by a thread,

and I’m left clutching the tattered edges,

spiraling deeper into this rabbit hole,

where every corner of my mind plays tricks,

where no one is as they seem and everything attacks my sanity,

Everything around me laughs as I stumble in the dark to find my way,

his laughter the loudest of them all.

I know his accusations aren't true,

I am never like what he tries to convince me I am.

I am never like him, I could never be so cruel especially to him.

Lost in the Mad Hatter's Wonderland where everything is an illusion

And there's a fine line between reality and fantasy,

where freedom is just an echo

and I am losing myself.

Perhaps I already have.

© 2024 Inaba Tarek