brother,
you were born into a war.
I understand now that the reason you can't call yourself Child is because I am not one, and it was into me that you were born, into my world, a willingly unwilling attachment to me, a moon to my planet in a universe I've already claimed as my own, orbiting around me as your kind do, you block the sun every once in a while.
where does that leave you?
hovering.
neither very far away, or close.
we do not touch each other, if only for the chasm of distant space between us, and the animosity we reserve in our stomachs, which [filled with magnets] churn and repel.
I am eighteen, and you are half that,
morning. awake before the children finish contemplating brave new worlds hidden between spaceship sheets and summer flannel. the house is far too cold. at nine a.m. I wished you happy birthday, and I will wish you happy birthday tomorrow, every tomorrow until I can tell you in person how happy your birthday should have been.
afternoon. slept on the floor of the office, where the sun beats into the carpet and warms the twists of its fibers: airborne dust motes burn in it. to be alone in my house provides mighty safety for little comfort. I am quiet, drifting, a cosmonaut lost in a sea of that which ties me down, keeps me calm.
evening. the g
one: crack the shutters, allow the rain to whitewash your room all grey
make a whole in the mess of crumpled parchment on the floor beneath you
a field of paper flowers
sometimes the best way to get somewhere
is to wish you were somewhere else
two: grow seas of fire, assembled of chipped glass and bible pages
break out of a third floor window in attempt to raise the bar of escapades
gray evening after a storm
yellowstripped lines dash across concrete
[wet, cold concrete]
glows red and white with the quiet onslaught of traffic
mind elsewhere, doesn't feel right.
you turn a little paler every minute
the guitar is strummed, longer
i picture light orange trees
the birds refuse to flock in
dreaming only leads to more misery
you cried today, for sickness
dirty vans pushing through traffic
i'll be there when you wake
you rock back and forth, back
i rupture the pillar inside me
spinning wind-up toys, hallway memories
tires gravel off the driveway
until a few days later when
you come home
you turn paler every minute
the guitar is quieter, quieter
i picture red blood streams
the fish get lost in
until
you
maybe I wanted to tell you this, anyway [some of this, anyway]
for once in my life I'm seeing you everyday
truth be told I have a lot of strange things to say to you
for said words left unsaid this poem's dedicated to
because there was a day a long time ago, a day of hospitals and latex balloons
and I would start there and end up here and never get any closer to you than I was
when you were holding me and I was anywhere in your head I could get to
I was born
and it's been minutes minutes eight million nine hundred thirty five thousand minutes
I've been drawing silly chalk pictures on the concrete outside our flurry of apartments
am I already here?
and I'm sitting amongst the Christmas
carnage, just wishing I
could've changed things
or at least stayed up a little
later last night
if only to listen to you love me
the only one who really did
[say that again, again]
I couldn't hear you
I couldn't hear you
the end of the road is not
so much a fork in the woods
than a line we draw when we think
we're done doing that
which means little to us
anymore
heaven help the ones
covered over by grass
I'm only just realizing
that my anger
management issues
aren't about my brothers
or my mother
or my people
[we can only wish for peace]
but my life
screw
I know where you live alone in your car
I know how you wish you meant nothing at all
I know when you cry how you slip and you fall
football games and sunday nights
autumn turns out all the lights
on our particular band of sinners
winner, winner, turkey dinner.
believe me when I tell you
I despise football, almost to the death.
and they gather 'round the kitchen table
glasses raised in cheers.
the autumn leaves are turning
there's chocolate on my keyboard
a sad song is playing
the football game is on
when I was a tree
green and ripe with leaves
I stretched into an oblivion
of color, shapes, and birds
who perched on parts