Existing

You are old now.
This is how
It happens, right?
all those years of working
just leading up to a couch
and a blaring television.
Your hair is long and white
and eyes that look but do not truly see
Your mind wanders away like the tide
It drifts off somewhere.
In that quiet moment,
that quiet stillness,
you ask how I was feeling.
In two decades, you haven’t.
For twenty years, you’ve looked at me
But you have never seen me.
Now, with your frailty
and knowing you are mortal as I watch you,
in a tiny room
with a loud television,
You ask how I am feeling.
But I think you see a younger
version of yourself
tucked somewhere in me.
“How are you?”
It is in that moment of lucidity,
in the stillness, in
the fragile place where Alzheimer’s
has loosened its hold,
where I only reflect you.
“How are you?”
But it isn’t a question for me.
You are asking,
‘Did I live? or
just exist.’
But the tide goes out,
a stillness returns,
And you go back to just existing.

Like a Board

Now, it is cold here.
My back is tight, like a board.
a million times
and still my first.
“Okay, Jeremiah..”
But I ignore the rest –
I know the routine,
This is my first time
after a million.
I want to say, “thank you.”
as they look,
as my body is searched
for disease,
But I am tired.
So I lay still,
My back is tight and still,
like a board;
after a million times,
Yet always my first.

breathe

I have not forgotten how to,
But I wonder
How I learned.
Have you also tasted
the same air?
How did I learn this?
How did you learn this?
Who held my mouth open
and put these words
in it?
words like “i”
and “you”