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 d...