In the sanitarium of my mind

I convalesce

Just what then will I epitomize?

Or, do I digress?

The mind is a curious domain

You can turn your attention inside

Discover the connections you’ve made

Then learn where the pit of your fears reside

Consider the invisible opérations

Disassociation or self defense

The subconscious training rituals

The impulse to build a fence

Observations from the playground

Internalized with limited objectivity

Often laid dormant or forgotten

In the shadows of obscurity

Is it really too much to ask?

How we descend upon humanity? 

How we treat each other and ourselves? 

The question in perpetuity 

Some say only knowing the reasons

Will not be enough

You must also be able to feel

Or your experience is just a bluff

The body holds its own accounting
A ledger written in the chest,
A tightness where the words fall silent,
A weight that will not let me rest

What wounds the most is often absent,
Not the blow, but what was never there,
The comfort missing from the doorway,
The empty space of unmet care

A child will trade away the feeling
To keep the bond that keeps him fed,
Authenticity for attachment,
A quiet bargain in his head.

So I learned to think instead of feeling,
To analyze and not to weep,
Assembled reason like a fortress,
And buried sorrow in the keep.

But thought without the heart is exile,
And feeling without thought, a flood;
The mind must learn to hear the body,
The pulse, the breath, the rush of blood.

So I return to meet the younger,
The one who stood beside the wall,
And name the ache he could not utter,
And answer, finally, his call.

To face the shadow is not surrender,
But gathering what was cast aside;
The anger I was taught to swallow
Becomes the strength I need not hide.

Responsibility becomes the medicine,
To carry what I did not choose,
To bear the load and find the meaning
Within the things I feared to lose.

Compassion, then, is not indulgence,
But curiosity made kind,
A question asked without a verdict,
A gentle light within the mind.

The fence I built becomes a garden,
With gates I open and I close;
Not every soul will find the entrance,
But those who do, the heart well knows.

So in the sanitarium of my mind,
I convalesce, but not alone;
The thinking and the feeling marry,
And I, at last, am coming home.

…

DCG

If every lock opened with every key, keys would become useless. People work the same way. You aren’t meant to connect with everyone. The people worth keeping are the ones your personality was meant to unlock. Because your job isn’t to open every door, it’s to find the ones you were made for.

— unknown