She used to call me by my sister's name,
I guess I can see how we look the same.
But now she looks at me with pain on her face
As she can't find a single name to place.
I'm almost afraid to see her again.
Forgetting me is no longer an "if" but a  "when".
I thought it would take longer but it's getting worse,
Mistaking her home for a hospital and me for a nurse.
I can see her eyes are full of fear.
She blinks. She's forgotten I'm here.

Like the snowball first thrown in the bitter chilled winter days
Is the same as my grandma opening her eyes for the first time and in her mother's arms she lays.
Later as the years pass and love blossoms in her heart
My grandmother's life with her own family is about to start
Now she is like the first snowman built standing ready to guard her home
To stay there to protect and never to roam
But as time sweeps by so does her appearance she begins to melt
The meteorologist say it won't snow anytime soon and day by day she will alter  
They try to give her more pills to delay her death but they try to conceal it with their palter
Soon my snowman will just be another puddle licked up the earth
But I will always remember my snowman's worth

Yellowed monochrome photographs
Like albums packed with epitaphs
Lie stacked one upon another
By the bedside of her grandmother

With weathered hands and weary eyes
She turns each page, and softly sighs
As fragile memories return
Her heart will ache, her eyes will burn.

For hours, she will reminisce
Though piecemeal, memories persist,
and she'll whisper a prayer, eyes wet,
"Jesus, please, don't let me forget."

Why Does Nothing Last?

A joyful youth that flickered for a moment, then vanished to the past.
Why does nothing last?

A truest love that burned so bright but burned too fast.
Why does nothing last?

A crossroad too many, the choices are too plenty, each direction too vast.
Why does nothing last?

A glimpse into ones self, A once familiar land now darkened, An ancient spell was cast.
Why does nothing last?

Memories I delve deep for, pictures with a broken frame.

Forgive me present moment, as I ask this whilst still sane.

Do forgive me present moment, press pause and pause the pain.

I fear I have lost myself, all but to the past.
I fear I have lost love as well,

Why does nothing last?

By Jimmy

At the nursing home
I visited my friend
Whom I hadn’t seen
In a long time.

Her life had ebbed,
And her health was in steady decline
As she struggled with
The dreaded Alzheimer’s.

While she slept soundly,
The squirrels played cheerfully
On the jolly ‘ol tree
Just outside her bedroom window.

I went to your house today.
You remembered I was coming.
And to take a bath. And eat.
You told me a story that happened
yesterday, not seventy-five years ago.
You didn’t ask the same question
thirteen times. There was no argument
about prescription drugs or bloodwork.
You didn’t slam the door.
But, of course, none of that happened.
How could it?
You are here and
you are
gone.


[Note: This poem was originally published in Cadence Collective's anthology Then & Now: Conversations With Old Friends, available for purchase here: https://sadiegirlpress.com/2015/11/04/then-now-conversations-with-old-friends/]