Oblivion Is a Name
By JCaraballo
for friend with dementia
He no longer names me.
He only spits “you,”
as to a stranger
stealing an old face.
His voice drips slowly,
a sour hiss of dead words.
His hands —splinters of inert flesh—
***** at the void,
searching for a world long evaporated.
I speak to him,
but his gaze is smoked glass,
a blackened well
where my reflection drowns and disappears.
Dawn: a letter erased.
Night: a gesture torn away.
Memory, a barren tundra—
even grief takes no root;
only the wind,
a stray dog
sniffing through hollow bones.
There is no return,
no face behind the veil.
Only a body breathing blindly,
a name —his, mine—
bleeding out in my dry throat,
echo of a seed
that never breaks the soil.
Nov 5, 2025
Nov 5, 2025 at 11:46 PM UTC
Oblivion Is a Name
By JCaraballo
for friend with dementia
He no longer names me.
He only spits “you,”
as to a stranger
stealing an old face.
His voice drips slowly,
a sour hiss of dead words.
His hands —splinters of inert flesh—
***** at the void,
searching for a world long evaporated.
I speak to him,
but his gaze is smoked glass,
a blackened well
where my reflection drowns and disappears.
Dawn: a letter erased.
Night: a gesture torn away.
Memory, a barren tundra—
even grief takes no root;
only the wind,
a stray dog
sniffing through hollow bones.
There is no return,
no face behind the veil.
Only a body breathing blindly,
a name —his, mine—
bleeding out in my dry throat,
echo of a seed
that never breaks the soil.