I’ve lost myself again, the way my mother keeps losing words. She misplaces them in my chest and I rip my heart out in attempt to give her my memories. Our memories.

Some days you are a reflection of all the things we’ve witnessed once before. I wonder if you ever think about her anymore, or how history has an atrocious way of repeating itself (up close). You keep trying to string things together to make sense of the unraveling world around you, but your hands don’t know the way around a needle and thread anymore. I wear thimbles like armor, and stitch together the things you say you remember, but don’t. Arrows drawn on the remote; symbols and language you weren’t prepared to have stolen from you. We hold our breath not in hope, but in anticipation, waiting for a shimmer, a glimpse, counting every glow of you left. We catch them in laughter, but we know this only grows exponentially the older we get. I know there was a time when you were more than this, but it’s so human of us to forget. Every time you rearrange words, and names, and moments, I pick them apart trying to find you there, but you are somewhere stuck between the ellipsis. You are caught on the semi colon. How do I hold you up and look you in the eyes as you ghost into everything I can not grasp?

Life is sifting your mind until there is
nothing
left
but dust.