Distance

Is it weird how I don't understand distance?

Like everyone understands space

And being distant to people

I don't.

I don't want to be distant from anyone

Infact, I want to be close to everyone

Wallowing in their sadness

And lighting up in their joy

I want to be close

Closer to human touch than to the idea of being distant

I want to listen to a random stranger rant

As he heads home on the last train, broken because his girlfriend thinks he's boring

I want to assist the old lady in the park

Where she knits socks for a grandson she cannot see because he lives too far away

And tell her I can be that grandchild for her

I want to be the one you send your suicide note to

'i didn't know anyone who could handle this, but maybe you'd understand' could be it's post script

I do

I sincerely want all the cares of the world

So I know how throbbing life goes on

And how a billion hearts beat the same rhyme in different ways

I want to travel in time

Obviously for the beautiful dresses and the idea of old love

But also so I can hear the cry of that woman

Who lost her husband in the war

Or the nervous banter of the girl

Barely even a woman yet

About to be anointed as the queen of a land she does not know how to lead

And tell her how she will be known as the greatest woman ever

I want to fall in love

Over and over again

And not hold back anything

Anger

Or sadness

Or love

Or despair

Because I don't understand distance

I don't understand the way we've come to be

Dividing ourselves on the smallest of things

I don't understand why telling someone that you love them is a mistake in the second day that you've known them

Or how one can ignore the bursting, bubbling, tragic beauty that is life

All around them

As they remain detached

And unaffected

No

I don't know how to be unaffected

I don't know how to not feel

A tidal tsunami of connections

With every breathing thing on the planet

All I know is

That I want to hear those stories

And see those moments

And matter in some lives

Loads of them

So that at least I

One of the billions

Wasn't distant

Or unavailable

Or just stupid enough

To let all this pass