This Is It! :)

You ask me how I became a madman.

It happened thus:

One day, long before many gods were born,

I woke from a deep sleep

and found all my masks were stolen, -

the seven masks I have fashioned

and worn in seven lives, -

I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting,

” Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me

and some ran to their homes

in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place,

a youth standing on a house-top cried,

“He is a madman.”

I looked up to behold him;

the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time.

For the first time the sun kissed

my own naked face

and my soul was inflamed

with love for the sun,

and I wanted my masks no more.

And as if in a trance I cried,

“Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”

Thus I became a madman.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness;

the freedom of lonliness and the safety

from being understood,

for those who understand us enslave something in us.

But let me not be too proud of my safety.

Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

~Kahlil Gibran