To expostulate what madness is

Polonius – “to define true madness/What is't but to be nothing else but mad?”

To be mad is to be emotional
in public; merely that. To laugh overmuch,
to weep, to stomp and scream, to exhibit
the poison of deep grief; ancient anger
unexpressed for too too long, that open’d
lies without, too much in the sun. Madness,
the inappropriate expression of
repression; synonymous with anger
for good reason. To be all outwardly
as one feels oneself to be inwardly:
sad, sick, hurt, brutalized, terrified, fucked.
To not care at all about appearance,
to speak sense with tongue unleashed and with voice
out of tune and harsh. To treat this moment,
as ‘twere elsewhere or when because echoes
indoors shake the house and break the windows,
wrench the pipes to rage hectic in the blood,
letting the kettle to the trumpet speak,
letting the poisonous door be unlocked
letting honest ghosts wail and beat the breast
letting one’s own discretion be tutor
letting madness range and stricken deer weep –
thus blowing the world away. What is it
but to live, honestly, in this moment
without trying to seem some other way:
some happier, more peaceful, well-adjusted,
acceptable version of the person
who lies every time he answers, “I’m fine,”
who lives in a constant state of mourning
bereaved and bewildered, lost and alone?
To be mad is to be truly oneself
without concealing what’s grieved and sullied;
and to be sane is to paint on a false face,
making the inside bear the discomfort
others don’t want to be burdened withal
so we can go on pretending all’s well.