A stroke of luck

 

My son Glenn called at my disabled bungalow. 

Me being bedbound he sat,y my side like 

brothers as always. He told me of his brothers 

and mother's difficulty with their cost of living

 crisis I said I would try to help but I had my own.

 

Problem and had little ready cash as I was

 scammed last year of twenty thousand pounds. 

My bank balance is only starting to bounce back, 

I was never really into money.

 

So, I never let it get to me but my family

Could have done with it. I explained to him.

That the massive stroke I took in 2005 that

Left me crippled in a wheelchair paralyzed.

Down my right side and I lost all long-term

Memory. I can’t remember my three sons

Being born my own childhood and 18 years

Of marriage, due to the brain injury, I suffer.

 

From aphantasia that’s like a darkness behind

Your eye unable to conjure up a picture, no

Mind’s eye it’s as if I live a 24 hour Déjà vu.

As if you can’t put my finger on life, as if

 I’m on repetitive repeat we talked about

A tv series that id saw nine years ago like

This was the first time even my audible

The library is full of books I’ve read three or

Four and I will read them again tomorrow.

 

I’ve done that after my year in the hospital.

Learning to brush my own teeth and wipe

my own ass, being bed bound living under

Care four times a day, I can hardly fucking move. 

I said to Glenn that the stroke might just have 

saved my life that I can’t remember.

 

There’s a blackness behind my eyes that

the able-bodied world doesn’t understand even 

the psyche and mental health hasn’t got a clue.

 Sentimental nonsense hurt's I don’t, even my 

family they haven’t a fucking clue what I am

 talking about.

 

Aphantasia and long-term memory loss is a form 

of dementia I forget everything I would be better

 off dead. I’ve attempted suicide twice and woke 

in tears in hospital even my care company don’t

 understand my family.

Even I don’t understand cause it’s gone?

 

My childhood, I don’t think my mind is strong

 enough to handle my shit childhood. I can’t 

remember the detail but let’s just say it started on a 

cobbled street with an outside loo do you need any 

more detail, north Belfast I was dragged up

 through a hedge backward the son of a bastard’s 

son, my father and I never spoke as we loved to 

hate each other. It’s strange even uncanny that I

 lost my memory.

 

For ten years before the stroke, I wrote

Almost every detail of my life in seven secure

Steel boxes in the back room. I think I’ve written

 these umpteen times before. I would be better 

off dead there’s a bit of black humor for you 

could you handle this?