The woman, they say, is insane
She was bright once, bright and burning
A dark little girl with the sun in her palms
Now she’s only burning, a flame of a woman
A slender, slithering, dancing flame
Dangerous and devoured from within
Wild and feral, she has only one master
One demon, one shadow of a man she answers to
Faithful and loyal to a fault
She would go to any length
To the end of her rope
And far beyond the edge
Deranged, steadfast, and unhinged
She dares not speak his name
But she whispers to him
The words of a lover, a lieutenant, and slave
It’s maddening, this unearned, undeserved devotion
That’s what made her insane

She’s haunted and rotten to the bone
To the hollowed core of who she might have been
A gaunt face with ghostly persistence
She’s always by his side
She has bent her mind to make room for him
Emptied much of her heart and sharpened her teeth
The smile she’s kept is a knife meant for war
A sword held by the blade, desperately clung to
She’s committed and cruel, capable of all crimes.
They fight together as one united force.
Creatures of hell, the two of them alike.
One and the same.
One unyielding and relentless fire.
People say he’s the spark that drove her insane.

Cette femme, a ce qu'on dit, est folle
Elle était brillante autrefois, brillante et ardente
Une enfant avec le soleil au creux des paumes
Maintenant elle se contente de brûler
Longue et lancinante, dansante comme une flamme
Dangereuse et dévorée de l'intérieur
Un brasier en furie
Sauvage et enragée, elle n'a qu'un seul maître
Un homme fait d'ombres et de fumée, un démon peut-être
Elle lui est fidèle, loyale à l'excès
Elle serait prête à tout
Insensée et instable,
Elle n'ose prononcer son nom
Mais elle lui susurre
Les mots d'une amante, d'un lieutenant, d'un serviteur
C'est cette dévotion impensable, sans rime ni raison
C'est cela, dit-on, qui l'a rendue folle

Elle est possédée, pourrie jusqu'à la moelle
Jusqu'au noyau corrompue de sa vie dévoyée
Jusqu'à la lueur vacillante de son visage décharné
Aussi acharnée qu'un fantôme
Toujours à ses côtés
Elle s'est creusé les entrailles pour lui faire une place
Evidé son coeur et acéré ses dents
Le sourire qu'elle a gardé est une arme de guerre
Un couteau tenu par le tranchant
Fervente et cruelle, elle est capable de tous les crimes
Et c'est ensemble qu'ils se battent, côte à côte
Deux créatures des enfers, damnés l'un comme l'autre
Unis en une même flamme, vive et infatigable
C'est lui, dit-on, l'étincelle qui l'a rendue folle

The woman, they say, is insane
Rotten to the bone
To the hollowed core of who she might have been
She was bright once, bright and burning
A dark little girl with unruly hair
And the sun in her palms
But the days of girlhood were numbered
There were rules to follow, expectations to fulfill
Pieces of herself to fold like shameful secrets
And throw into the family hearth
Ambitions were childish things to be put away
Her potential, a live ember they closed her fists on
Leaving seared flesh where all the fated lines cross
A birthmark in reverse
A souvenir of the day she was extinguished

But as that coal was dying in her hands
A man appeared and pried them open
He spoke a sibilant tongue that only she could understand
Dark as night, entrancing as half-remembered dreams
He whispered to that small ardent thing within
Nearly smothered but begging for air
He blew on that hungry orange glow
Until it was red iron hot and starving
Ready to rage free

What he said was simple
Come, there is another way
Some trees grow crooked so they can reach the light
Come, wouldn’t it feel nice to disobey
To stray
To dirty your white stockings
To touch what is kept under lock and key
To learn what is hidden
To do what they forbid
To be licked by the flames
And see the wallpaper blackened
The faces of your distinguished kin
Blistered and cracked
By the forked tongues of the blaze
By this fork in your road

And so she followed, like a spark following a powder trail
Like orphans who mistake candy for bread crumbs
Or fall in the thralls of strange musicians
For when every road seems a dead end
And wherever you turn, you meet your shadow
You no longer know whether you are walking home or away
Into the thorny embrace of the forest


That is what insanity is
Listening, lost and beguiled, to this hissing tune
Until it is all that makes sense
A voice that insists that, really, you can subsist on nothing
You can breathe water
You can breathe smoke
You can twist yourself out of yourself
Molten metal spilling from the mold
You can save yourself if you renounce yourself
And all that for such a small price

Like fairy food in childhood tales
Once tasted it becomes the only possible sustenance
This dazed denial
That draws light from darkness
Pleasure from sickening pain
The thrill of power from helplessness
Love from a man who does not love,
Who is barely a man


The woman, they say, is insane
Demented and dangerous
It’s there, printed on the front page next to her distorted face
It’s on the lips of passersby
It ripples through the streets with hushed horror
As a shiver runs up a spine


But is it any surprise, really?
Her family is a long linage of various kinds of madness
The screaming and the silent types
The shrews and the ghosts
Great aunts and distant cousins who married and had offspring
Polished the silver and waxed the floor
Losing their own shine like glowworms in a jar
Until, one day, they closed their bedroom doors
Sat on their beds with a sigh
And never stood again


The woman, they say, is insane
Devoted and deranged
Devoured from within
They say insane because it’s more reassuring than evil
Because it means confused, not resolute
But the line between making and losing your mind is so very fine indeed

Faced with being sold to a man, one way or another
She preferred to sell herself
To choose her master, her own brand of lunacy
To pick her poison, the most potent one
The one that did not demand cradles and dresses
And years and years of a waning death
The one that rushed straight to her head
And filled it with bursting, blinding stars
And the iridescent swirls of gasoline
With the mouthful of ecstasy
And an aftertaste like a long swig of tar
Not a slow drip from the dropper but the whole thing at once
Violence and limerence and this liminal place
Where the agonies you feel and inflict
Are one and the same

An emptiness through which that tune still whistles
Come, I will show you the way
The oblique path beyond all constraint
Come, stand where no other has stood
Above weakness, above fear, by my side
Come and bring the world to its knees
The only thing never consumed is the fire itself
Come, I will make you a flame
I will let you burn on