Autumn

Leaves are falling

Softly off trees

The temperature’s dropped

To eleven degrees

You long for your day

To wiz by in a flash

Only going to work

To earn much needed cash

You dream of golden beaches

And sparkling blue sea

The days of the summer

When you were happy and free

Winter approaches

With its dark nights and rain

You remind yourself

It’ll be summer again.

Dementia Took Grace

Your disease riddled brain

Is causing you pain

You can’t tell if

There’s sun or there’s rain

You don’t remember your children

They’re just strangers in the room

They come and they go

They’ll be back soon

You could’ve been a doctor

Or a murdering psychopath

You’ll never know who you were

And you don’t recognise the staff

They feed you and they wash you

Whilst you blink, in oblivion

Not observing the seconds

As they wizz by in the millions

Death is now approaching

But you’re blissfully unaware

Snoring loudly

All alone in your chair

The day you slip away

Your family all cry

But you’d been long gone

They could tell by your eyes

They were lifeless and empty

Just blinking mechanically

Your daughter remembers

You happy and free

Now you’ve been dead

Just a few days

Your son still pictures

Your smile, like sun rays

Dementia stole your soul

Before death stole your face

Bu your children know you

You were their mother, Grace.

The Home

Like lost animals they sit

Round in circles of despair

Trying to remember

Why they are even there.

Their eyes are still blinking

But have lost their spark

Their energy has faded

They are left in the dark.

Microwave meals

And countless cups of tea

The nurses never rest

From tending to the elderly.

They now are like children

Innocent and vulnerable

Their personality is gone

They can’t recognise themselves.

Their families visit

Now and again

Pretending to care

Pretending to love.

But how can they be loved

When they’re just a shell of a person

Now the empty home

Of that once vibrant soul.

The Lost Days

Days not recorded

are swirling in the air

like flies that never leave.

They buzz inside my mind

enough to remind me that

they’ll never leave me.

But I know they existed

and now are yesterdays

lost but not lost

in the great void of time.

The Day He Woke Us Up

When we were woken

Our eyes still stung with sleep

We didn’t understand

What was happening

We could still smell the candyfloss

From the fairground in our dreams

And the cold morning light

Shook our systems awake

The man we both adored

Stood before us

Crying softly

Holding a suitcase

“I’m leaving” he said

And in that moment

A part of me broke

And the room swam with pain.

Cutting Out

It’s hard cutting you out

It’s harder than I thought

I see why they call it cutting

It’s stinging like the slice of a knife

But your stabs were always deeper

And the wound you gave me never healed

So it’s time for me to reclaim my life

And not let you win with your knife.

Clothes

They cling to you

like a desperate lover

their soft touch caresses your skin.

Wrapped up in your woollen fleece

safe from the metallic world

cotton carves your cries

as silk sways in your dreams.

The hidden history

of your body

underneath the thick coat

is a knitted nightmare.

A baby’s shriek

is silenced by linen

and the dead’s last touch

is their favourite outfit.

We used to run free

naked and wild

now clothes have claimed us

in their powerful embrace.