Lost in Oblivion

After a while, desperately grasping for things that are out of reach becomes tiresome...

The inner-workings of mind used to be my shelter.

Secrets and memories once secured tightly in the deep corners of my brain

are now lost in oblivion.

I didn’t lose myself to oblivion instantly.

No, that would have been too easy, huh?

Even with early-onset alzheimer’s, the knowledge fades slowly.

Things and facts I once considered second nature,

seem to slip like sand through my fingers

How to fold my daughter a paper airplane, how to tie her shoes, how to recognize the sound of her voice

She says I told her stories.

I wish I could remember each them, or even just a few...

As these stories fade, our story fades

Pages ripped out

and burned

with smoke rising

like the angels of our fictional characters laid to rest

stories

... lost, floating, with no direction.

When she looks up at me with those crystal blue eyes

my heart feels infinite-

an ever-expanding blue sky

but when she says, “I miss you, dad.”

I say, I miss me too Emily.

I grasp desperately for something inside of me-

I-

Something basic and pertinent-

I-

Incredibly familiar, but hauntingly distant

I love you, Emily.

I'm sorry.