The Handwriting Gone from the Wall

It’s the things that will punish you,
When you forget the names for them.
Words don’t care. After all, the words

Were the names who abandoned you.
Not actually. It was your brain
That started leaving. You knew that.

That’s part of why you blamed yourself
And a lot of why you panicked.
But mostly it’s the nameless things

Who will set out to punish you.
Hour after hour, you stared at them,
Thought of them long and lovingly,

Hoping names would come back to you.
The nameless things stared back at you.
Without names they were unhelpful.

How could you know how to use them,
All those glowering, surly things
Without names, mutely scorning you?

In those days, those days that will come
For you, what will you, could you do?
Maybe someone will keep you safe,

Someone without a name who cares,
Who seems to have taken some pains
To secure you, who stares at you.