Unraveling

Boxes and baskets of all her old things
Porcelain dolls, portrait paintings
She swore they'd be worth something

They're just gathering dust in my attic somewhere
And she's lost in a room where she sits and she stares
Her mind as blank as the walls
Her memory as vacant as the halls

I'm the only daughter of her oldest son
I knew her well before her spirit was gone
And her life is a thread woven into every part of me
She is unraveling
She is unraveling

She looks in my eyes and asks me my name
And every five minutes I tell her the same
She smiles but it's cold and dead
And I'm screaming out loud in my head

I tried to pull her back
Stories and photographs of her sisters and brothers
Her children who love her
She can't remember, but how could a heart forget?

I've been tearing through boxes on nights I can't sleep
Searching for memories of who she used to be