Sheetal Potdar

They say, write anything.
Anything.
How do I write?
When my brain is mush.
I can’t remember
the past
Or speak of a reliable future.
I have forgotten
The books I read
The faces I loved
The friends that were once special.
They have all left,
What seems like a prison.
In which I am bound,
of timelessness. Emptiness.
A sea of loneliness.
With waves of emotion hitting me.

Who am I?
They say I was a doctor
And a mother
A wife, a sister,
A daughter, a friend.
These are just empty words
Robbed of meaning
By my vacuum of a brain.
It snatches at information.
Misremembering, misinterpreting.
Glimpses of the past.
They paint a picture
But I can’t say for sure,
If they are about me,
Or someone else.

They say I had a great memory.
My brain used to be
A great well of information.
Now all I can feel
Is that it’s leaking.
Robbing me of myself,
And my control.
Who am I?
When I can’t even verify
Who I used to be.
What I used to feel.
Now all there are,
Are moments.
Fleeting instances
Of recognition.
Of long lost friends
Passed into oblivion
In the living world and dead.
What choice do I have?
But to look forward to darkness.
When in light, I cannot recall,
My own being, my own essence.