You're sitting in a room
far from home
and there's absolutely nothing
you can do.
You're sitting alone, thinking
about her being alone too
and there's nothing to be
done about it.
You know she's sitting—
well, laying—in a room with
things coursing through her,
veins that are hurting her.
You know that sometimes the
cure is just as nasty as the
disease, and it'll be worth it
to see her smile on the other side.
But in the meantime, there's nothing
you can do. You can't be there to hold
up her hair when she's got her head
in a toilet.
You can't be there to bring her
water when she's raspy, food when
she's hungry, hold her hand so she
knows she's not alone.
But she is, and there is nothing you can
do. And that doesn't make you a bad person
but it smarts all the same, that you can't
be there for her.
Because that's all you want to be doing,
sitting alone in a quiet room on a cold
night, you want to be there for her, to
hold her so she is not alone. Not cold.
But the laws of physics and the laws
of illness care not for what you want,
only moving ever onward, leaving you
far, far away.
Far too far away
