Porcelain Dolls Poem by Robert Burgan

Life behind the yesteryear
Cracking frame of mind
Pictures plastered chronologically
Getting jumbled by the plaques inside
Slowly leaving present tense
Walking through the past on a tight rope stretched
Across the miles between reality and the things she hasn't forgotten yet
Somewhere in the middle
A brittle porcelain doll
That i hold in my hand
Knowing the outcome of the spiral down
As she walks across and gets closer to the edge
I stand below with open arms acting as the safety net
All I have to give is care
Offer her my spirit
I am continuity she recognizes my appearance
Time is all we have together
I watch her slowly worsen
Some days she seems to understand her situation
Her eyes show the reversion
Monday she's a child again in her mothers arms, she stares out the window into an unknown world
Confusion creates a glare
By Friday she's in her 20s
Dancing across a polished floor
Attempting to break through daydreams and relive the things that she knew before
Once the sun goes down
She sits confused in a hollow room
People at her fingertips unrecognizable like the half lit moon
Watching the sun come up is an everyday occurrence
But the harder it gets to see it shine
The longer it takes to find its purpose
Eventually she loses all her strength
That's when it takes its toll
I'm consumed by her slow decline
Not knowing how much longer she has to go

Hoping I took the best care of you I could
Porcelain dolls shatter in my hands
Gone for good

Now its a weekly visit
Attempting to make my conscious clear
Telling myself daily I did everything possible to keep her here
Care is needed around the clock
I think of the hours we spent for years
Her mind got weaker by the month while the learning experience helped mine reappear
I sit back and think about being thirteen
She would slip me ten dollars for lunch
Knowing I didn't have money to spend
She was always there to lift me up
Now at twenty three I'm lifting her up out of a chair
As she looks in my eyes for assurance that I won't leave her in somebody else's care
Watching the sun come up is an everyday event
But the longer it takes to find the words
The harder it gets to structure them
Ill be confined to memories like she has been for years
She'll be confined to a bed
As everything constant disappears
I see the empty couch she spent hours time traveling on
I travel back to yesterday now for both of us everything familiar is gone

Hoping I took the best care of you I could
Porcelain doll
Shattered in my hands
Gone for good.