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jon-tobiasPoems
When you live with someone who has Alzheimer’s your house feels haunted Mostly at night Only ghosts wander like that             So aimlessly It is metal pounding in the garage a knife in my hand and the deep breathed fear of          What’s behind door number 2 It is him halfway inside a dryer              Trying to get out I sleep with my door open listen carefully like a ghost hunter for the way he haunts the halls for the soft pat of skin on tile collapse fnd the moaning I carry him to the bathroom He is the heaviest ghost ever               A different kind of dead weight I light him a cigarette The cherry glows red in the dark The tobacco crackles with each puff He calls me nurse calls me some other name one I’ve never heard before He is just practicing                   It is hard to be good at being so lost Even now that I am a man he still scares me scares me differently Startles me in the dark comes around corners crawls on the floor towards me               I am not always ready for that Before He scared me the way a feral dog scares living food A certain kind of animal inside of him Now he isn’t so wild            Taming takes so much away He is dark spots on tan paper crusted blood on nose and head yellow ET cigarette stained fingertips                 He is me in thirty years He is barbiturate slack jaw Forward lean balance struggle And at night he is so much a ghost I forget about his good days and wonder                What’s the point? My house is haunted by a man who has never not gone Bump in the night
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Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 5:21 AM UTC
When you Live with Someone who has Alzheimer's your House Feels Haunted
When you live with someone who has Alzheimer’s your house feels haunted Mostly at night Only ghosts wander like that             So aimlessly It is metal pounding in the garage a knife in my hand and the deep breathed fear of          What’s behind door number 2 It is him halfway inside a dryer              Trying to get out I sleep with my door open listen carefully like a ghost hunter for the way he haunts the halls for the soft pat of skin on tile collapse fnd the moaning I carry him to the bathroom He is the heaviest ghost ever               A different kind of dead weight I light him a cigarette The cherry glows red in the dark The tobacco crackles with each puff He calls me nurse calls me some other name one I’ve never heard before He is just practicing                   It is hard to be good at being so lost Even now that I am a man he still scares me scares me differently Startles me in the dark comes around corners crawls on the floor towards me               I am not always ready for that Before He scared me the way a feral dog scares living food A certain kind of animal inside of him Now he isn’t so wild            Taming takes so much away He is dark spots on tan paper crusted blood on nose and head yellow ET cigarette stained fingertips                 He is me in thirty years He is barbiturate slack jaw Forward lean balance struggle And at night he is so much a ghost I forget about his good days and wonder                What’s the point? My house is haunted by a man who has never not gone Bump in the night
jon-tobias
Written by
jon-tobias
American
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 5:21 AM UTC
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