These are the nights I wish to remember
The ones spent with family late at night
When I'm old and wrinkled
Grey infesting my hair
Let's paint the walls with laughter
Watch the colors fight the grey
These are the memories
Please, I beg you
Please, please stay

Most days she does not remember what day of the week it is or what time it is
But she always remembers how much I love her
Sometimes she calls me by the wrong name and can’t get her words right
But she always remembers to tell me how beautiful I look today
Most days she cannot form a full thought or complete a full action
But she always remembers she wants her tea with honey and lavender is her favorite scent
A lot of days she asks me the same question 17 times and gets the same answer each time
But she always remembers to tell me how much she loves me
You see Alzheimer’s is tricky and it toys with her head
But she always remains a beautiful soul with a heart full of gladness and an undying love for orchids

She held my hand
And dried my tears.
Comforted me
And eased my fears.
Yet now she struggles
To remember my name.
God is playing
A cruel game.
She's not here,
But she's not dead.
The future fills
My heart with dread.
She lives in her memories,
Trapped in the past.
The illness has taken over
So fast.
But I smile with her
And lend my ear
Because one day she
Will no longer be here.

Pick a cause, any cause, and slap your receipt on your bumper.
Everyone is doing it.
Everyone needs something to be passionate about.
What's your disease?
Not a one of us has it but **** if we don't act like it.

Walk it off.
Blame federal taxes.
Blame the government.
Why not your cause?
Why not your ailment?

***' you know Johnny is going to die if we don't do something,
and Susie's just runnin' outta time.
Buy a teddy bear to show you give a ****.
Donate that extra quarter.

It all piles up somewhere.
But who, I mean who ever bothered to cure anything?
A million lab coats are workin' on your answer.
Just give em' a sec,
this stuff takes time.

In the mean time throw another buck in like your the only one.
Like this is the only problem left.
Like Santa only cares about breast cancer
or the church only cares about Alzheimers.
It's got one of their own you know.

Uncle Jim's got cancer of the liver,
where's his save the children fund?
Timmy's got cerebral palsy.
Sara's got Aspergers.
Randy has the Typhoid.

Pick a brand any brand and show you give a ****.
Like the only one who gives a **** about the only thing that matters.
Forget them, what about me?
What about my issue?
What about my family?

Does the take a penny leave a penny in the seven eleven make you feel important?
Good.
Look here, buy this pin. 10% goes to Katrina victims

Old school is old school

He still knows who he is and who he was
At least until that too is taken away

He explained that there are things between men and women

     That will always be so

But she cannot accept this in todays world
The one he cannot remember
Except for a woman's place and how he honors her

He once told me that to turn a woman down

     Is considered to be an insult

I mocked him for his ways
"How convenient for a man" I exclaimed
But he gave me a knowing look

     "You don't know how it is son"

He cannot remember what he had for breakfast
But he remembers how life should be
A man is a man
Even when his mind betrays him

He is not impressed with my progressive ways

     "You cannot change nature son"

Everything that was disproven and discarded
Has come alive again
The old world is the world
For those who cannot remember today

How can I teach him that what he believes will end his life?
How can I reach him when his identity is more important that freedom?

     How can I?

you are {short}term memory loss and i am alzheimers and we fit together like broken(glass)

you are homeless and i am full(ofhope) without an inspirational outlet so i'm going (sortof)crazy without you here

you are an almost forgotten past with alcoholic breath and i am starknaked bodies scattered all over

i stumble accidentally into chaos and you follow and i find myself saying, "that's your problem" but it's really mine.

Health anxiety.

You google one thing and it says another.

You have a headache and it says its cancer.

Countless trips to your family doctor.

The test was negative, you will recover.

Everything is fine but you’re feeling awkward.

Maybe everything IS fine, perhaps you’re like an actor.

Acting out the symptoms you should get an oscar.

Sue me for feeling like somethings not right, get me a lawyer.

To everyone around me, i’m like a destroyer.

I need to rebuild my life from being an over reactor.

Theres a fine line between normal worry and anxiety.

Theres a fine line between being labelled from society.

Theres a fine line between being sick and being healthy.

But even those who are wealthy are not protected from being unhealthy.

And thats where this fear has developed.

Knowing the highest of classes still are not protected.

CEO’s can get cancer.

The president can get Alzheimer's.

Investors can get tumors.

Is it really so peculiar that I fear that this will occur.

Occur in me? Effect my family? Increase mortality?

Maybe i’m not a clinical case of a hypochondriac, but I feel that sometimes I can be.

Maybe i’m not a maniac, but I know I over worry.

These thoughts don’t keep me up at night, but when I’m sick I always think...

What if its this, what if its that, what if this thing can **** me.

But I guess thats just normal anxiety.

Evolutionary instinct.

Our human kind won’t go extinct.

I don’t need to talk this out with a shrink.

So this cold is lasting more than a few days, maybe i’ll just go to a doctor.

Stop fearing that this is the end, see someone and you’ll feel better.

You can get sick from being stressed, or even change from weather.

Its not strange if you catch a cold, no need to worry it won’t last forever.

When you feel like the doctor is wrong, please try to remember.

A runny nose isn’t cancer, forgetting to check the mail isn't alzheimers, and a headache isn’t a tumor.

Those are all just internet rumours.

Google isn’t your doctor.

Worrying isn’t hypochondria, no need to add that to your self diagnoses list.

While disease is a real thing, worrying is the real *****.

I seen you and your memory of me was no more.
So I just left and cried out the door.
Next time I seen you your body was no more.
So I just left and cried out the door.
I hung your picture up on my wall knowing you will not be there for me no more.
So I just cry on my floor .

One day after a couple of blunts in my friends car the conversation of
"Whats the worst thing you have that you could lose?"
Someone said their eyesight cause they like colors too much, I almost agreed; I dont know how long I could last in a world with no tie dye and  where I couldnt watch the sunset dance its ****** and the sky take its curtain call.

Someone said hearing,
God this one I almost totally agreed with. My favorite songs are now only the parts I can remember.
My mom can now only yell at me with her eyes and never will you hear your love say I do in their violin voice.

Still something else seemed worse, and it might just be because im so sentimental, but I answered memory.
I REMEMBERED a friend from middle school that I rode the bus with who was usually very cheerful getting on the bus one day looking very distressed, and it was only 6:45, what couldve been wrong so soon? So I asked.

"My Grandmothers alzheimers has gotten worse,  she forgets my name sometimes."
That hurt me to hear and I could only be there for her that morning.
As time went on she returned to slight normalcy but one day she got on the bus looking more sullen than ever, I moved to her seat to talk to her about it.

"My grandmaw is in a nursing home now, and every day when she wakes up she doesnt know why shes there. She doesnt just forget my name anymore."
She. Didnt really return to any normalcy and as months went bye she was out of school for a day and when she came back she explained to me why and it still rings in my head as one of the saddest things I've heard.
"My grandmaw got worse and worse, eventually having to be reminded how to use utensils, and she forgot about my grandpaw, and eventually how to eat and drink. Her funeral was yesterday."


So when the question was asked I thought about having to visit a loved one and having to introduce yourself,
And not being able to say,
"Remember that christmas when we both over ate?" Or "remember the time you paid for our first date? Do you still remember what I ate?  Do you remember our vows? Do you remember when we hid our hickies from our parents and it didnt work? "
"Remember riding our bikes past the firehouse and scraping our knees? Do you remember the time at your birthday when you let me help you blow your candles out? Remember when we talked about how to talk to girls remember summer days spent swimming and laughing till our stomachs hurt because nothing really mattered? Do you remember?"

That would eat me alive,
Take my legs and arms,
Those things can be made fake,
But memories cant be replaced.
Make them while theyres time to be made, and write a detailed autobiography just to be alzheimers proof.

Watch an ice cap melt.
Watch your mother cry.
Watch your grandfather forget your name.

If a tree falls in the forest, alone,
does it make a sound?
If a girl cries in the dark,alone,
can she be seen?

To be an artist is to choose
loneliness over emptiness.
Why do you think poison ivy grows leaves?

To use the right side of your brain
is to choose
to make a sacrifice.

Why is that looking into the-
Wide and open city so upsetting?
I saw the bird,
She was looking amongst the buildings,
A space that was hers
Or maybe the space-
Her ancestors have told her,
The folklores and many songs-
Written on the very space.
She crossed mountains,
Seas and barren lands
To see the city lights and
The many dreams she had.
She is not homesick,
She doesn’t even have a memory
Of her home-land
It is a long lost dream
Which cannot be recollected.
She’s homeless.
Was she looking for a mirage
In between the tall buildings -
‘They’ said where dreams prosper?
It’s a furnace,
The colours of fire she could see,
The shadow painted colours-
Orange, red and grey and
Still it required meaning?

I’m looking for it too!
I am scared of forgetting,
Old age and Alzheimers
I’m a dreamer, a homeless hippie
But there is a root, a deep root
A scent, a strong scent and
A soul that is sometimes homesick.
I’m a coward, a bold faced, masked dancer
But there is no rhythm, no audience
It’s just silence, dull grey stillness!
These buildings scare me, where is it?
Where is my chariot?
I cannot follow the crowd
They have a home, a meaningful home
They like the cement, the black air
And bundles of printed paper.
They stamped me mad. Am i?
Maybe I am.
Hey bird, I’m not responsible-
For your destiny, look, look
Look at my hands, there is no blood
Look, look carefully, there is no stain
But I belong to the race, I belong to
The same age, the same world
That changed your fate!
I've no redemption from my sins!
I've no redemption from my sins!

curious child
peering from the bedroom door
half open
standing in the shadows
i watched him
he sat in his easy chair
right elbow propped
cigarette placed between index and *******
light from the tv flickering off the walls
smoke snaking its way to the ceiling

my Father
in his sixties then
lost in the vapid juvenility of Hee Haw
my Father
whose poetry i had discovered
tucked away
out of sight
out of mind
this little black book where he kept his soul
waiting
if he ever decided to find himself again
or perhaps to just remind himself

in the early stages of alzheimers
i saw him cry for the first time
wondering aloud
why after struggling for so many years
he was rewarded with a failing mind
and the loss of a friend
a friend left behind in a black book
a friend i never knew

the funny thing is
when my mom was together with my dad
--like as a thing and he would
run to the pay phone across the street from where
he lived whenever his pager went off that
she was calling him--
his dad asked her is she was going to
give him a grandson
and my mom
being the person that she is
told me that she laughed and said maybe

the funny thing is
when i was born and the midwife
announced that i was a girl
my nan who had mistook my umbilical cord
for a ***** leaned over and asked
the midwife if they were sure

the funny thing is
my grandfather’s mother
she always thought that i was a boy
and yes i know that she had alzheimers
and was not all there
but now i feel like she was able to
see through my dresses and long hair
to the boy that i would one day be

the funny thing is
i was often mistaken for a boy as a child
and when that happened there was always
a little burst of warmth because yes
i was a boy
i looked like a boy
i felt like a boy
but no no no
silly girl they all would say

the funny thing is
when i first met my father’s father
my grandfather if you will
i was a lesbian
and in texas that isn’t a widely accepted thing
and i was told a lot during my two week visit
that i just hadn’t found the right man yet
and so now that i am a man
i wonder what they would tell me now

the funny thing is
i don’t have bottom dysphoria
have a ****** does not bother me
i like being able to comfortably ride a bike
and read ****** novels in public
without it being obvious that that is
what i am doing

the funny thing is
my grandfather’s mother
who we all called papa lucy
died before i realized that i wasn’t a girl
i had that terrifying revelation at seven
and though my memory is foggy
through much of my childhood
she passed a year or two prior to that
and no i do not mean it is funny that
she died because that is terrible and i loved
her with all my heart
but it is funny that she saw who it would take
me nine years to be
and i didn’t get to reintroduce myself to her
and tell her she was right

the funny thing is
now that i am a boy
i am near-constantly misgendered
and it seems that no amount of slouching
or wearing a binder under it feels like my
ribs are cracking with every breath
and wearing pronoun buttons on my sweatshirt
and bright rainbow beanie
is enough to make people see otherwise

but ****** i am a boy
and my nan thought i was a boy
and my papa lucy knew i was a boy
and i used to get mistaken for a boy
before i grew hips and ****
and despite all those things i am still
a boy and i always have been and i always
will be and the really not funny thing about that is that
people seem so eager to tell me i am wrong
and try to force me back into the box of
daughter and woman and mother and sister
and no i will not be those things
and it is not my fault that i live in this world
where they do not know what
a body other than theirs means and how terrifying it is
to realize you are not the girl you were raised as at such a
young age you do not have words to describe how you feel
and they do not know
and they will not know
until they shut their mouths and open their minds

so please do
before any more of my transgender brothers and sisters
have to die for your ignorance and hate and fear
because there is nothing funny about that

I heard you whispering through the empty door-frame
Seeking sleep from your desired lover, unchanged and the same
the twilight years of life, are they anything like the twilight zone?
Perhaps the alzheimers leads to a quantum close
and
mirrors float like seperated identities, I let the spirit into me
Sentient flow comes with a pill of Gingko biloba
The oval Mandala SWEEPS me up!
Back in the circle of the SANSKIRT gumption
Carved like a pumpkin, that's sumthin if you're thumpin
Loud
Loud
Loud enough.

God must have left us
or maybe died
if we are made in his image
does he get Alzheimers
his mind slowly muddling up
so he may have forgot about
his seven billion children
then again maybe we drove him away
or to suicide
because we have been naughty
boys and girls
who don't like sharing their toys
and when others
talk about their perception
of divine beauty
we throw rocks at them
for their endless fibs
because we can't be wrong
and we can't all be right
we devour and suffocate
our children
with our social expectations
and all we really give a **** about
is self betterment
not of the inside
but the external visage of our personage
weight rooms clang with
masturbatory grunts
and a piece of fabric
is more likely to go off the shelves
if it is branded with a corporate signature
or if it's what's in
****, if I was God
I would've left too

it was almost two months ago
my new job was going terribly

i had two managers
one was either a compulsive liar or losing her memory
to dementia or early alzheimers
the other one was a typical single, white, overweight woman
who enjoyed flying into fits of rage and preaching about white privilege
when she wasn’t giving angry lectures about how howard schulz’s wife
had nannies to help her raise her children

she didn’t like me
so i just quit, with no notice other than an email
saying i was resigning effective the time stamp of that email

two weeks before i quit, i had the saddest dream
about some guy i had a mental breakdown over ten years ago
i haven’t talked to him since some sad
emails in 2010, he never responded to my last email
i’de been looking him up online lately but retrieving no matches
because his name is so common and it’s been so long

in my dream he texted me or emailed me
magically, he had gotten my phone number
or one of the email addresses i use now
he wrote that he would be in my town
and asked if we could meet

i was really looking forward to it in the dream
i was getting ready, hair, make-up, clothes
i realized my dress had a ketchup stain on it
towards the end of that part of the dream

i don’t think my hair or makeup or face or body looked good
i looked like i look
ten years older and haven’t kept up or maintained anything
not that i looked good ten years ago, but i look a lot worse now
i sort of realized that when i saw the ketchup stain

then it occured to me that he never responded when
i either emailed or texted him back:
“yes, yes, let’s meet again”
there i was, excited, getting ready,
vacuuming a car I haven’t driven in years
i just wanted everything i wanted back

i thought we were going to meet that weekend
but then he emailed me saying
no, he wouldn’t be in town until the 22nd

march 22nd was on a wednesday this year
so i would have just been working late
and getting a bad review for anything i did

i quit my job on tuesday, march 21st, after a hard day of doing nothing
since then, i’ve drank a lot of wine, gotten ******, and smoked cigarettes.

i also found his mom’s facebook page
and his.

his is set to mostly private, but his mom had posted
some recent pictures of him and his girlfriend

he looked weak and unhappy in the eyes.

A meaningless life
Filled with nothing

"Did I get something to eat"

She asks.

Yes, I can see the food

You are the most ignorant, obnoxious person
I have ever met

People like you
Should be sent to India
To work 13 hours
In a sweatshop
Just to make enough money
To survive

Your luxury car impounded

People like you
Get Alzheimers
Because you never use
Your mind

You are one of the laziest
Most obnoxious people
I have ever met

You don't live
But exist
Like a picture on the wall

And I hate to be harsh
But it's true

You are an incredibly stupid
And lazy individual

I won't be here
For the holidays

That we are living in Alternative
History and How long has it
Been?  If we have anything
To thank DT for it is at last
We must take the question
Seriously and if we choose
In the affirmative- What
If anything can we do.?
Can I can you Wake up
If we don't realize we are
Dreaming; a serial dream
Of many days and nights.
I imagine it will take a  loss
Of memories, a collective
Alzheimers in which we
Return to childhood where
History is only a rumor, a
Fairy tales that has some
Entertainment value to
Adults; but  is a story
We can only enter into
By a suspension of Dis-
Belief; and what do we
Really believe in in those
Childish days  For myself:
There is a Mother and Dad
A baby sister Sue, My two
Grandmothers and my
Aunt. My neighborhood
My dog Stubby and my
First best friend Ronny.
My neighborhood of
Small houses on a circle
Other children.Exploring
A little woods secluded
And finding some big
Mica rocks and strange
Red bugs under them with
Ronnie and Stubby nearby
All the time in the world
Today...  I suppose  that this
Too is a dream or  memory
Of a dream.  But it is a
Better dream and some
Of us old folks know it.
Just too many fake facts
Today  and so Donald
It's good to know that
There is something we
Can agree on even if
Its not that you really
Won the presidency.

And forth came a glimpse
Of a withered face,
In the broken mirror,
That stands behind the curtain lace
Grey, messy hair bun,
Wrinkle filled sunken eyes
A heavy set of, glass rests
On the nose, pointing skies
The fresh mint tea brew
Excits, the twitched lips
Oh, dear I miss thee -
Thy soul that rips
Guide these trembling hands
To thank in a prayer
The lousy back won't help
For my walker, has lost a pair
Dragging one leg by other
As I sit by the fireplace
Sipping the fragranced tea
Rocking my chair in a pace
Thousands of memories
Rail down my alzheimers head
So many years gone
Now, it's just me and my empty bed
Tears fill and spill by its own will
I got to pack up, for I to, have to leave
Leaving all memories behind
In a slient place to grieve
A small room, I am spared to
At the golden age gardenia
I am almost gone from myself
Just few threads, hanging near...



©sim

'Forgettable'

What an interesting theme!

I often wonder
What would I want to remember most
If I had Alzheimers
This contemplation led me to
A realization
(I'll try to memorize)
There's only one thing to remember:

'The unfindability of all phenomena'
(a.k.a. 'emptiness')
(a.k.a. 'lack of inherent existence')
(a.k.a. 'lack of true existence')
(a.k.a. 'Ultimate Truth')

I hope I can remember this
And that it helps
If I ever find
My memories
Flying into the sky
Like balloons

I must tie
A special string
To my finger

To RE MIND me

Sean

Remember when I loved the holidays?
Two years ago, I was wasting so much of our precious time
fighting with you.
Fighting over how important it was to celebrate with family...
Stressing to you the ways that made it important, and
How it was you, that had made it mean so much more to me.

Because, at the time,
we had been planning to become a family.

I can't stand the holidays, anymore.
It’s around this time of year when I remember opening up to you
about how happy it had made me to have you there,
and seeing you with my family,
had somehow felt like home to me.

Tonight, those same memories
are wreaking havoc within my skeleton;
shattering all the parts of me
that surgery could never piece back together.

Now I’m Hollow;
And Homeless.

Family used to be home,
but my family is no longer a sanctuary
or hopeful detour;
Like when your rings still weighed on my hands
and your dog tags around my neck.

With no monetary claims to prove my worth,
They see only shame -
In how I remedied my own temporance.
Their all too familiar absence,
Has yet to silence the unspoken questions
asked through eyes of disinterest
and judgement.

They think I won't see,
what they don’t want to show,
if nobody tells me.
But I notice every rehearsed attempt they make
to try to fix me…
To fix the person I’ve become
since I tried to erase your memory with self-destruction.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

You killed us by becoming history,
so I killed us by becoming an addict.

Recovering from crystals
that melted into the air in my lungs
whenever I managed to speak your name again.
Recovering from every promise you made
and the all too familiar feeling of nostalgia
that’s both painful and pleasurable…
bittersweet.
Recovering from my true addiction
- You.

The holidays meant catching up with cousins
while you sat with my grandma.
You always listened as she shared her life...
A life that Alzheimers had slowly taken from her.
Like they did her memories of me.

My Grandmother never remembers who I am
when I visit or call…
So why, then, does the woman that raised me,
STILL ask for you by NAME?

Each visit results in telling her that you left me.
She asks me why I messed up, again…
what I did wrong, this time…
and if you found something better in this new woman.

Reminding me that I failed to be enough to stay…
For once.

Trust me… if I knew why nobody ever stays in my life, I’d tell her.
I’d be able to explain to myself why everyone that I grow to love
- LEAVES.

I grew to hate the holidays but maybe you’ll grow out of it.

I hope you got the family you wanted…
and I hope they help you love the holiday season;
like I thought you loved me.
I hope you manage to make so many happy memories
that your happiness surpasses my emptiness
at what I remember.
I hope she’s worth more to you
than the money you spend on her -
like I never could be.

When people ask me why I hate the Holidays,
I hope I think back to when I almost married my father,
sharing more than just his narcissism,
hidden intelligence,
or his love of alcohol…  
and how much that boy
-like my father-
hated the holidays…  
and tell them about you.

Whenever people ask you why you love the holidays,
I hope you think about when you almost married your mother,
sharing more than just her middle name,
her love for you & her home,
or her love of astrology…
and how much she
-like your mother-
loved the holidays…  
and tell them about me.

Jacky Trumphemus
is schizophrenic or
else, he has lost his
marbles, because he
just told me I was an
Etat Unis Connasse!

I watch from a distance
As distance is a friend
Watching and waiting
For time to somehow bend

Watching as time
Steals her away
There is no more time
For keeping her at bay

She is the one
That mattered most
Brought me into this world
Raised me as she knew best

But time has it's way
It will steal her from me
Take her away
And she will no longer be

A mother
A wife
A grandmother
Full of life

Her memory is fading
No longer standing tall
I try not to show
The sadness I feel for it all

I got a friend who finds her heartbreaking
Even though she is breathtaking
Perfect flesh made for the taking
Of love of air of hope and dreams
It seems that screams haunt her heart
The lines built in her skin
Are threadings of the once him
She has lost a light that I never knew
I never had the pleasure to see it shine through
Only now do I get an inkling of her truth
She is a violin in the cemetery
A wolf with bat wings yes she is that scary
She is a writer like me a dark art beauty
Whether she will ever know it or not
She is a beloved dear friend
And I will treasure these moments
We shared till the end
Or until my Alzheimers kicks in

an old man with Alzheimers and a panic button
on his watch walks into the bar slowly
the bartender leans in, drops a napkin, presses the button
and looks the man in the eyes as he orders a diet pepsi
The man’s eyes shift every two seconds-
from the TV, to the bartender
to his watch, to his hands
to the TV, to the door
to his watch, to his hands
for seven minutes, record timing on her part-
an older woman in running shoes and a
visor rushes to his side
and whispers in his ear that he isn’t supposed to leave
she tries to pay, the bartender says no
they leave together hastily
she is ashamed, every time
but he is only confused