The Distance

I want to cradle my mind in my arms.

I want to take it, while it screams through chapped, peeling lips

and kiss its forehead.

I want to hold it tightly to my body as it pulls and twists away from my grasp

and gently wipe the sweat from its eyes.

I want to coo to it, that everything, in time, will be okay.

I want to look into its eyes and remind it that the all-consuming loneliness it feels

is normal and inescapable.

I want to run my fingers over its greasy hair, and shush its whimpers.

I want to heal my brain through connection,

but all I offer it are

tiny pills that hold no human warmth.

It’s scared of them and

the prescribers themselves

that sit behind impenetrable walls of professionalism and trained symptom recognition;

when I speak to them I imagine hugging concrete and coming away

even more raw than before.

I want to be what my head needs,

but the simplicity of its request has grown into an impossible obstacle:

to be seen,

touched,

listened to –

to have someone meet it inside its own world

just to hold its hand.

I want to let it feel my hands pressed against it

to prove to it that their robotic standards and tendencies

haven’t actually blotted away my capability

to hear it.

But because what I want is nothing but an ignorant absurdity

and I’ve already agreed to be adjusted,

to stay out of confinement and

away from sedation,

my embrace remains empty

And all my mind feels from me

is the distance.