Brain Drain

It’s rather a strain to consider my brain,
right there behind my eyes,
between my ears,
loaded with heady fears,
there where my own mind is blind
inside.

Yet,
it’s all I’ve got.
What’s that between my ears?
What does it know,
what made it so smart,
now losing it’s heart.
There’s a lot of things it’s
still got to do.
Things such as:
WAKE UP!
FEEL THE TIME,
TELL ME I’M HUNGRY,
MAKE A BEELINE TO THE JOHN
(So, how does it know I gotta go?)

IN FACT,
my brain knows family from friends,
friends from foes,
foes from strangers.
But I still don’t know
WHO TELLS MY BRAIN SO?
Sometimes,
my thinker freezes,
when I’m ill with the sneezes,
when I’m called on to act,
Or must recall a certain fact
that suddenly slips and hides
between tonguetip and lip.
I just can’t spit it out,
SOOOO…
WHO STOLE MY FACT LIKE A THIEF?
It was my own brain!
That’s insane!
Good grief!
Wouldn’t you think, since it’s a part of me,
that it’d be on MY side in all matters
pertaining to me?
Info speeds are growing worse,
my brain is yelling, “SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN!”.

Too much news here, I can’t even begin to CHOOSE here!
A screw is loose, I fear.
People think they know me, they THINK they see behind my eyes,
just as I can peer into theirs.
SUDDENLY we are aware, then stare,
feel close…or distant, depending upon our “window’s” glare.
I cover feelings up with bangs, glasses, lashes and shaking hands,
trying to conceal the fact
I didn’t understand.
I cover up the pinholes
that let worlds in, yet looking OUT
isn’t happening.

It’s been lately losing
wattage and memories,
some information growing dim.
My dear nimble noggin’s go-power
is on the wane.
My brain starves for new connections,
to illuminate the darker sections.
Racing thoughts seek cover,
but finding no place to park or hover,
they fall apart.
The bright ideas I think I thought,
popped now like bubbles sliding down the drain,
PARKINSON’S is this condition,
of my slow-leaking brain.
I won’t complain.
I can’t complain.
Complaining just adds more strain
to my parkinsonian brain.

Lately my thinker is losing
wattage and facts,
some info is growing dimmer,
memories won’t last, except
those stored there before ’99,
in my very
distant past.

Here’s a noggin losing go-power
not by day or hour but
nevertheless,
my brain is a mess.

WHO LET THE FILES OUT?
Who dumped them all on the floor,
mixing those filed under B
with others I’d clearly placed in Z?
If I can’t sort these, I’ve lost
my ME.

You shake your heads and mutter, ADHD.
I agree.

Starving for new connections,
needing to illuminate those darker sections,
my BRAIN races for cover, but
finding no place to park or hover,
mopes in the corners behind my eyes.
Those bright ideas I think I thought,
popped now like bubbles
sliding down the drain
tears caught between eyes,
nose, and ears.

Parkinson’s is this condition, of
my slowly-leaking brain.
I won’t complain.
I can’t complain.

To complain just adds more strain,
to my Parkinsonian brain.

Gray Matters 2: Giving Thanks

What is this gray, furrowed cranial lump
Wrinkled into swisscheesy folds?
MY BRAIN! (How dull!)
It no longer molds to my skull!
What was once a tight fit,
now sloshes much too loosely,
sized wrong from ear to ear.
I feel a squeeze in my chest
when I confess,
I’ve grown a size smaller up there.

Each drop in height or width,
cost me more memories causing despair>
Every thought or reminiscence is
somewhere burrowed between each furrow,
busy pulling up the ladders that make the connections;
thus I lose my directions.

I stop to mourn each time my meandering mind
cannot make a self-correction.
I grope for that A-ha! Eureka!
A connection to open up those miles of files,
to find that bridge across the abyss.
I think I’ve GOT IT!
I say it (sigh)
t’was but a miss.
Shock, polite looks avert from my pain,
so I try again…and again.

Those sleepy furrows shunt my thoughts,
down odd chutes
miswrought, untaught, caught in the cabinet labeled
“I thought you said…”
“It sounds like____”
“It starts with a…K”
???
(please, don’t look away)

“You know who I mean,…he was married to
whatshername, who once starred in, youknow, that TV show
with…that British guy with hair gone gray….??”
(I’m getting a rash, sweat pours down, front and back)
“Youknow…that actor that reminds me a little of my 3rd grade teacher…”

Such garbage slips glib from my lips>
You notice my struggle so politely,
both of us pretend it’s “normal”, so tread lightly.
I’m here! It’s still ME! Licking my wounded ego,
hoping you won’t go.
I need you so.
You’ve helped me grow.
This I now know.

Perhaps that extra space now freed up between ears,
behind a smiling face…
just perhaps there is some use
for this cranial abuse!
More room might allow
less gloom to seep through.
Light pours into my eyes,
glorious vistas, friends and family ties
have spaces to be.
Halleluja! So grateful to see.

Perhaps the gift of less memory
in this newly elevated real estate,
is the space from whence I can shower the world
from my gray ivory tower.
I can share love, new connections to tall,
drown out that self-hate
and destructive pall.

Now I care, I share it with all in a similar boat.
Guess what guys? WE FLOAT!
My thinker’s still ticking, we’re still kicking
and best of all:
New memories are now sticking!!
Our bane, OUR BRAIN, is now our blessing
GIVE THANKS AND PASS THE DRESSING.
AMEN.

My demon

My doctor once said
words I most dread
“You are not aging gracefully.”
I thought at the time
he just meant my spine,
realizing now with loathing
he saw behind this Queen’s clothing,
that deep within this ol’ head,
memories too soon will be dead.
My world, my life, my heart and soul,
replaced by some old hag
who will most certainly drag
you down roads you won’t want to go.

I’m right now betwix’t and between
two worlds, one mine,
one obscene.
While I lose my ME, the shell you’ll see
with agony
as that
someone who once was
ME

I dance now a little bit faster
I want you to be the last to know,
I have so much to do,
to leave behind
oh how unkind!
Cruel brain of mine,
robbing my dear ones of my love,
my mind.

It’s in the small silences that chime
after I’ve mistakenly said a line
from someone else’s script.
You look away, quite upset
because I tripped
over my shadow’s thought.
Exposed, standing caught
in the headlights of this stranger’s onrushing
train of thought.

Now you can see,
what I’ve forgot.
Neither you nor I
have got a lot
of time.

Anything,
ANYTHING would be better
than leaving you this way.
this way will just push you away.
You’ll hate me a bit more each day,
hate yourself for thinking that way
because I know you, and I know me.
I KNOW I’d drown in guilt before I’d say
the truth:

That woman sitting there moaning isn’t really she,
Isn’t worth the effort to keep going.
As she drifts from life,
my mom, my wife.

I want you to keep it light,
maybe uncouth
but truly right.
Just set me out on the iceflow
some night…
so to speak,
let me die soon
after my peak.

Right now I need all my nerve
to keep on driving
’round this curve.

I need you to know, after I go,
that I KNOW
how you love me,
for I love you even more.

I’ve loved you forever,
and will love you both
forevermore.

If I try to say it in prose,
its’ too mushy – you’d doze.
But the rhyme keeps it slow,
keeps my thinker
stretching for that flow.
I can’t let it go,
not yet.

The tangles that mangle
The memories, they dangle,
I don’t need your pity right now.
I do need your help in getting me through quick.
Nothing is worse than being a curse
on those whose worst fear is
cleaning up after one’s loved one
who is sick.

But never recovering – ever recovering –
ever returning from this oldfangled
world of demons,
aptly named – because it’ll getcha
my demon, dementia.

And it got me,
right between the eyes,
as my brain slowly dies,
you hear its cries
when I tell you lies
about my late arriving demise.
My Mad Hatter
couldn’t be gladder
to get to that date
more than a little late.
God, all this I hate.

Written 5/5/2004 around 4-5 am.
Last revised 8/3/2006