Torment at 50

Nick has a corrupted short-term memory
he'll ask you the same questions
over and over, his long term memory isn't that bad,
he kept talking to me about when we worked
at the Inquirer in the mail room (this was years ago)
we talked about it maybe 15 times,
my heart broke each time I shook his hand,
looked into his eyes, answered the same questions again,

the depression medicine was doing its job alright,
we toasted to his father (a shot of house whiskey together)
under my breath I made a dedication to him,
and his lost soul, fevered mind, unrealized dreams,
un-tethered consciousness,

I thought about it the entire night,
I think about it now with the rain pounding
in the night beyond my window, how horrible it would
be to realize how lost
and helpless we are and
how free he is from time