Dear Brother

I am terrified of losing control,

insecure and selfish. Were you?

I am self-conscious

of what I do when I black out,

but I’ve never worried about

getting older. Would you? I have a shy bladder

even when pissing next to friends.

I wonder if you ever had that problem.

My little brother was once attacked

by a dog he was petting; kneeling

in the dirt next to a wooden pole where

the dog was tied, she jumped at him

without even a growl and bit a hole

in his eyelid, among other things.

Sometimes dogs can scare me

because I remember my brother

and the hole which let him cheat

at hide-n-go-seek;

as the adrenalin pumps through

my terrified veins, I yell at the top

of my lungs and run straight

at the thing. It always runs away.

I am getting older, but you died at fourteen -

Not from a dog attack, but

from a migraine and a broken heart -

I would often find myself

afraid of the dark inside your old room;

even though dad repainted the walls,

replaced the furniture, spread

the ashes at the family farm

in Oklahoma - the last in the house to go to bed,

up a set of stairs, a couple turns,

a squeaky hinge, and the light switch

teasing me, whispering the terrifying sight

in my ear of chrome-plated .357 with a black

handle, sticky with crimson fingers

reverberating a smothered echo

that shakes our family’s very foundation even over

a decade later - the switch mocking tragic dirge,

feeling the weight of the instant the silent night

breaks by the hammering switch

lighting the new scene of my dead brother’s

death room - painted walls,

new furniture - the same room

you never saw.

My little brother didn’t always do well in school,

and I didn’t always try.

I’m admittedly terrified of math because

I don’t understand it; I get nervous

when someone tells me something

I don’t understand, and when I hear

and still don’t understand, I get angry.

He would too, which is a sort of funny

brotherly trait that gave our parents hell.

And for the rest of our lives we’ll be forced

to try balancing the gaping hole

shot through our lives, loving him still,

forever lost in wonder at what he would

be like, even now he’s lost.

I’m horrified of being judged; that people

will stare at the bumps on my face. Were you too?

Would you still be? I’m scared of spiders,

bees, and wasps, but you would squash them all.

I’m mostly afraid of failure.

I’m not so scared of ghosts and you were,

but if I didn’t write this down,

I’d fail my brother,

I’d fail you.