Ilse Sjouke and Martine Brandt

A “far-from-my-bed”-show

The more every­thing is
with­in reach from my bed,
the more the out­side world
becomes a dis­tant spectacle.

Every­thing that was once famil­iar
is now strange, not my own.
Every­thing that got me agi­tat­ed
now seems small, so marginal.

The world goes on
and from far away I hear
the laugh­ter, the whis­pers,
the whim­per­ing and the taunting.

The world goes on
with­out notic­ing
what is hap­pen­ing to me,
hard­ly any­one is aware.

I try to con­nect,
to empathise with oth­ers,
and to feel what is going on
in that big world outside.

I some­times won­der,
do I still exist?
Because so deprived of con­tact,
I seem to slow­ly dissolve.

I am here, the world is out there.
What­ev­er I do and try,
the “there” drifts away,
far beyond my reach.

I look and won­der.
The big becomes small
and the small becomes big.
Sud­den­ly I see it so clearly.

I have lost what I am look­ing for,
found what I did not ask for
and fol­low my own path,
towards the core of myself.

Here silence and empti­ness reign,
noth­ing becomes some­thing, the empti­ness full
and I see the essence of me:
L O V E.