The Patient©

As I sit here in my room, watching
The people in white suits rush back and forth
It makes me wonder what separates us from them.

I was one of them wasn’t I
Did I not have what they all have:
a family, a job, a home, and a hectic schedule
What has delivered me to the other side?
What separates me from them

Those of us on this side are tucked away until
One of them has time to tend to us
We wait hoping that one day we will return to our
Former selves: to be able to dress or to eat,
To function without one of those white coats
What separates them from us

Time keeps passing, yet I am still here.
The white coats are looking more and more familiar
The days are becoming more and more routine.
They say that they are helping me and that I am getting
Better. Yet here I wait still
What separates me from them

Days pass into weeks, weeks into years and the white
Coats become a blur.
There is no calendar with which to measure time yet
The minutes and hours tick by, I know. I hear their stories
Of family and friends; of colleagues and all
Those they meet, the weddings, funerals and vacations
What separates them from me

They say that I am well now.
That I can leave and have a normal life, yet I know
I am not my former self
I have been separated from them

Andreas Simic©