When you wake up in the morning
with dread of a house you don’t own
anymore
your key stuck in a gummed-up lock
and a memory of 4:00 a.m.,
on your own porch, no one else
awake yet, maybe some birds, maybe
raccoons
How are you on your porch
in your pajamas, and no one there
to let you in?
Your mind goes down mazes:
Where did you make a wrong turn?
And where, where is it
that you’re supposed to be instead?
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Today’s prompt at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads was to write about the mind.
Marilyn Rauch Cavicchia 
Ah, I can feel this confusion. So well written, Marilyn. I am enjoying your work so much.
A legendary story in my family is of a strange man delivering my aunty to our front door from another city, in her nightgown. He had passed her walking in a daze, and stopped to help, and when he asked where she was going, she said to see her sister (my mother). Luckily he was going the same way. She couldn’t remember how she came to be walking alone in her nightie on the highway, very early in the morning. (From my present perspective, remembering things I heard over the years, I strongly suspect my uncle was violent with her.) Anyway, your poem with the confused protagonist reminded me.
Oh, I can relate to this.such confusion is life stealing. I have family members who wander. You describe it so well 🙂
I have experienced for a split second not knowing where I am (driving in the dark) – I chalk it down to living in a lot of places … many roads, homes, etc. Truly scary. But not to the extent you write about in your very effective poem!
I can totally relate. My mother died of complications from Alzheimer’s.
Ah yes ..morning disorientation.. it starts slowly at first then quickly gathers pace.. I had a grandmother who was in early stages of Alzheimer’s before she passed away… sigh..
My youngest daughter does this all the time whenever she is away from home. She wakes in utter confusion, and at times fear.
This would terrify me.