Tag: Poetry

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.

There are a lot of things I should do

It’s three degrees outside.
The house seems
to be moaning.
It’s making
sounds I’ve never heard before.
“I understand,”
I say out loud,
trying to comfort the empty room.
It’s brutally cold outside.
I was thinking
that maybe
I should build a fire.
There are a lot of things
I should do,
so many things.
But instead,
I just sit here and drink coffee.
It’s lukewarm.
Black,
and strong.
From the couch,
under my blanket,
I sip coffee strong enough
to strip paint,
and look at the fireplace
thinking about all the things
I should be doing.
But doing
often means saying
and saying often means talking.
I don’t trust my words
or the things
that might fall
out of my mouth
when I open it.
So I just sit
and sip my coffee.
I listen to the house,
as the cold day
takes its toll on her.

flesh and bone

I know this much: the way you recognize the taste of rain on concrete.
During the day, breath slips away quietly.
At night, sighs drift apart and settle around you, like old memories.
Maybe it’s just curiosity, that restless feeling inside you.
Or maybe it’s a sense of longing.
Or maybe it’s just thoughts passing by, quick and hard to catch.
In quiet moments, when everything is still, you notice your heartbeat.
Time slows down and moments stretch into hours.
Hours slip by and soon become days, like clouds drifting and fading away.
All of it stays with you, like a memory that never leaves.
The body was once solid, full of flesh and bone, with a steady heartbeat.
Now it feels like just a shadow, barely there in your memory.

unspoken

I have seen your eyes.
I remember them
when they spoke,
when they answered without words
showing me your happiness.
Now, what do your wrinkles tell me?
What do your tired eyes say?
Wrinkles can tell a story,
but I am not sure what they say anymore.
They are different.
I long for age.
I long for old age.
There is beauty even in worn skin,
in the wrinkles around the eyes
that tell of everything
that words cannot.
But your eyes?
I do not understand their language.
And your wrinkles?
They speak of the arrival
of old age;
not of beauty,
of loneliness.