Middle age. Sometimes “The Scream” is the work of art that best captures this stage of life. Youthful illusions depart and we are left in the setting sun, protesting feebly against the indignities of the second half of life in a world gone mad.

I am a woman controlled.

Remember this; I never scream.

Yet I stood a form apart

Watching my other frenzied self

Beaten by words and wounds

Make in silence a mighty scream —

A scream that the wind took up

And thrust through the bars of night

Beyond all reason’s final rim.

The Scream, by May Miller (an excerpt)