I found this recently and wasn't going to post it but the line "I used to be a person" has haunted me all week. It was written maybe 8 or 9 years ago about an elderly friend.
"I used to be a person"
she said, eyes begging belief,
a spot of food on her face
framed by stringy hair.
"I haven't always been like this"
prefaces a repeated story.
"I'm 77 right?"
She is 80, the same as 5 minutes ago.
"You're old enough" I respond.
She smiles slightly.
What do numbers mean anyway?
"I had a restaurant and children"
tells about them,
shuffling decades
a deck at cards, dropped.
Memory and shadow are the same
as she announces
"I'm going to be a person again."
A.H.
This one hurts...I wonder how Roger must have felt. He told me that he decided to be a nicer person so he wasn't going to be his old self. I told him "Please don't be nice, I loved the not nice Roger.
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