• I stood alone in the shadows and watched her
    lighting her last cigarette
    and pulling tighter around her shoulders,
    a blanket of grief and regret

    i could only slightly see it
    as i looked into her lost eyes,
    the deepest of her memories
    that darkened her mind's blue skies

    I wondered if she'd ever break
    from her broken state of mind
    or if her eyes would ever look back at me
    instead of sailing high seas through time

    I wanted to reach out and touch her
    but i quivered at the thought of her skin
    as it lay tight upon her bones
    portraying a body, skeleton thin

    She was once my mother,
    a very long time ago
    but now, as I look at this frail, fragile woman,
    I see someone I do not know

    What kind of dreams haunt her at night?
    How lost in her thoughts does she become?
    I often sleep in hopes of waking
    to the mother that I came from

    I watch her still, night after night
    growing more afraid and weak
    and her stone cold figure, never flinching
    from the slightest tap or creak

    Mother, it's time to wake up.