Just a Minute With You

Your disconsolate hollow eyes continue to stare straight through me Your mind has transformed loved ones into strangers You see only a haze of people coming and going Words whispered affect you not Nothing spoken can affect the puzzle left unsolved in your mind The missing pieces are designed to shut people out And although I fail each day to recover the absent pieces I Persist. Each day your once colourful portrait grows dark with age and sorrow Failed attempts to add a dash of yellow Yet still I stay here waiting for the brief minute or so when you'll notice I’m here. You'll smile innocently and ask me when I arrived. I'll play along as I hold your hand and lie to protect you; 'I just got here Mom' For a minute your colourful portrait peeks at me from its cobwebbed corner But happiness is futile You leave no sooner than you arrive In my hand yours suddenly grows limp Your smile retracts Your eyes grow hollow once more And you no longer know who I am Contemplations of leaving you alone cloud my psyche My tattered soul is constantly frayed by the devastation caused by your lassitude. Turning my back on you I only ever make it to the door; never once have I opened it My fingers grasp the cold brass though I cannot turn the knob Tears blur my vision and I return to my chair beside your bed Waiting faithfully for the brief minute in which you return, Knowing I’d rather have just a minute with you, than no time at all.