The Loop

“The Loop”

   By Adena M’lynn

There’s a woman who calls me “sister”
though I’ve never met her before.
Says we grew up chasing fireflies
and outrunning ghosts
that only children could see.
I nod.
I don’t correct her.
Maybe she remembers a better version of me
than I ever lived.

Alzheimer’s
isn’t a thief,
it’s a carousel.
Each turn sends her
back to the kitchen where her Mama Nell sang,
then forward to a sidewalk she walked just this morning.
She eats ice cream with her childhood friend
and asks me if I’ve seen her today.
The past and present blur
like watercolor in rain—
faces she half-remembers
places she swears are home
but don’t have doors anymore.

And the words—
they come like prayers,
or old bruises
that still ache
even after forgetting how they got there.

I think about the words we speak,
how they hang in the air
long after we’ve left the room.
How a cruel sentence
can ricochet decades later
inside someone’s mind
like a record stuck on
the part of the song
that cuts too deep.

What if the last text you sent
—the one typed with anger—
is the only voice
someone hears when their mind
can’t tell today from tomorrow?
What if your silence
screams louder than forgiveness?
God, I can’t imagine
looping the worst moments
like reruns of pain.

This is my plea,
Be kind.
Not the fragile kind of kind
that folds when it’s tested,
but the iron kind—
the kind that remembers
every time you wanted to be forgiven
and offers it first.

Because the mind
is a record player with a thousand needles.
Because words,
just like deeds,
spin on repeat.
And I hope when my memory stutters,
the song it clings to
is one where someone loved me
loud enough
to drown out every cruel thing
people ever said.