The Fog

I brush at the cobwebs of images in my mind's eye, that turn into thoughts,
but the fog swirls round and round,
halting the sounds that should come out of my ever closed lips.
These are seemingly simple thoughts, that should help form the words that might express the ideas and feelings
which make me who I am, or who I once was.

I curse this damned fog that enshrouds my thought and encapsulates
the being whom I was and still long to be.

I can sometimes remember who used to live in this crippled
shell, where my mind plays hide-go-seek, and my body seems
to spin out of control, like a child's broken toy with no purpose.

Why can't they understand that I am still locked inside?
I am here! Can't you see my tears, or hear my heart beating? I am here, buried alive.

I lay here in this place, where people attempt to care for my body.
I am washed and turned, changed and groomed. I can feel a human touch from far away,whether
in kindness or rough frustration. This touch is my umbilical cord that still connects me to life.

My heart longs to cry out, but my lips remain locked, foiled by the fog
of this cruel disease that holds my soul captive inside this shell, where once I lived so well.
I await my release from this prison.

How I long to be free once more, to be me. I pray that my friends and family will be released from their obligation, their sentence of love
that they serve so valiantly.
I pray that they will once again remember me in joy, with fondness for all that we once shared. I am here. I reside in solitary confinement, padlocked by a cruel disease..

I pray that there will soon be a cure, an answer to the riddle that
robs the mind and puzzles the world.
Dementia is a cruel jailer and death it's only key.