The Captain

Dementia’s favorite outfit is no pants

Dementia looks me in the eyes before it decides to buy a new car

Dementia makes people think it is just a mid-life crisis,

sneaking up on the brain until

it is too late

Sitting on the floor of the hospital room

in a black polka dotted dress while

Dementia feasts on my father’s brain

Captain Phillips plays on the TV and all I hear is

Dementia saying,

“I am the captain now.”

Hands on the controls,

sitting comfortably in a seat

Dementia makes you forget you have a daughter even though

she has not left your side for sixteen years

Dementia will take those years away from you,

chew them up and spit them out because

Dementia does not give a fuck.

Dementia delivers suffering before death

making you forget everything but

Dementia knows it is memorable

and tornadoes through

poking holes in a brain

I used to admire

walk into the house one day and realize

I can’t remember what my father used to be like

Dementia makes everyone forget.

Plaguing brains and lives until all you remember

is the day you heard about the diagnosis

and then Google tells you there isn’t much research and

there is no cure

and in the background

I hear an echo

“I am the captain now.”