20140204.0806

A conversation I had yesterday reminded me of one of my great fears
The loss of my faculties
Of the mental powers that have defined my life
Led me to where I could find love
Sustained me since my early days
Despite my relative lack of social graces and ongoing tendency towards being a hermit

I am reminded of days spent delivering pizzas
Days that found me standing in the lobbies
Of nursing homes
Of mental hospitals
Surrounded by the stink of stale urine
And despair
And the staring eyes going blank
Of those whose minds were leaving them
Or had already fled far away

Even now,
Years and miles away from those days and those places
My throat clenches
My stomach turns
I shudder in revulsion and fear I once held back
(Because such actions do not endear
And my pay was impacted by my being a dear;
There is another story in that)
Not least because I have seem myself among them
Not as transient food-bringer
As inmate as my soul is sealed away
In body and mind made worse than useless

I fear to be trapped
Within myself
Seeing myself stripped away
An onion is the usual image
Being made of many layers that can be peeled away
One at a time
Leaving the onion yet an onion
But less with each peeling
What is not often mentioned is that there is no core
Only another layer