I tiptoe into the room
Breathing in the sickly scent of disinfectant
Smothering the smell of dust
Gripping the book I’m supposed to read to him 

The nurses told me not to wake him up 
Especially when we first meet                   
The nurses compared his brain to moth infested wool 
Age feasting off of his personality
Holes where memories used to be
Mending together only when he could sleep
Dreams, his fountain of youth 
Whisking him to the past

When I walked in he was wide awake 
Turning his head towards me 
His eyes pools of faded denim 
Catching my own
His back going rigid in his wheel chair  
His brow immediately furrowing               

I watched his face scrunch up into a series of rolling tides
The folds of skin collapsing onto each other  
As he cried.  
Cried.
Small, delicate tears
That  got caught in the crevices of his skin 
His bottom lip trembling as he began to speak 

He told me about a sister
Whose eyes were hazel- a little lighter than mine
Whose blonde hair curled at the ends- a little less then mine
Who had a laugh that was infectious- he hadn’t heard mine yet
She was little. I was little.
She looked like me.

His sister, 
the one that nurse had told me about 
the one that old man couldn’t forget about
dead in the Holocaust
Body lost in that Polish concentration camp
The girl who never saw her brother return from war
One who lived while I was a mere apparition of the future 

He loved her 
You could see it in the widening of his  eyes
In the praise that fell from his lips 
He called her extraordinary
Kind and smart  
He called her brave and beautiful 
The list of adjectives I cling to the hope of being 

That night, I stood in front of the mirror
Hoping to see myself  
But my eyes took in a reflection  
That was only half my own to begin with