Last week in my English class,
a debate began, one in which
I did not want to be present.

"And how could Mary forget her family
forsaking the ones who love her
despite how they seek to care
only for her and renew her soul?"

That was the question
my teacher posed to us.
And this is the response
a friend of mine gave:

"She seems crazy or going
to go crazy at least.
Like maybe she's bipolar."

The debate moved across the room,
each person nodding his head
condemning what she'd done
and condemning who she is.

I found myself biting my lip,
muttering, lowly and under my breath,
"Do not speak of things
which you could never understand,"
strangely enough the same comment
James makes to Edmund each time
he tries to explain his mother's illness
and tries to condemn her actions.
If her own family couldn't know
her mind and who she was,
how could a group of strangers
explain her away any better?
How could they condemn her
when they neither knew her,
her heart or her mind?
How could they judge her,
how could they use that word,
when they had no idea
what it's meaning truly was?
If they did, crazy would not
be the other word used to define her.
How could they know her pain,
How could they condemn her
as a wife and a woman and a mother
when they could never know
the despair which was heavy in her heart?
How could soulless strangers
understand and condemn her soul
when they never knew her,
her loneliness or hopelessness?
How could they judge her
for wanting to finally be free?