Crooked Beauty and The Embodiment of ‘Madness’
by Ken Paul Rosenthal
c. 2010

A filmmaker delves deep into the creative and conceptual process of embodying madness in the poetic documentary, Crooked Beauty.

this poem deals with potentially upsetting topics; read with care.

inspired by a line from a tara hardy poem (being a femme means finding the map that your grandmothers left you for how to survive and then wearing it) and the ensuing revelation that one cannot have a map when the past terrain has been disavowed.

I guess I am lonely and trying to feel good about myself when I don't have a mirror to reflect my worth to me and it gets hard being my own cheerleader day after day.  I hate how insecure I have become, how I doubt my worth now, how I think no one wants to know my reality or truths.  How I feel like no one understands.  I cannot go back to acting like I don't know what is in the world under the manic panic hair dye and punk LPs and hash - and I don't want to.  But I feel very isolated.  I know I bring down the party, but the party feels like a nightmare to me. 

I’m not embarrassed anymore about what happens to me in times of stress. It’s simply that I sleep-wake. My dream/nightmare becomes wrapped up into my waking life via a belief system that has buoyed me. My cure for that is to be an atheist and to always regard what my friends say highly. Sometimes their advice and direction is better than my own thinking. So, I want to keep an open mind to the possibility that sometimes the things I think are symbols rather than reality. Reality is connecting and understanding my friends and communicating with them in a way that makes sense to both of us.

Mourning the pain I've inflicted on my soul for hating it because of being raised by an extremely bi-polar mother and then finding myself in manic episodes. And now, being told I'm o.k. but doubting always.

I'm not sick. Quitting Paxil a little at a time.