Little Brother

It has been three weeks since my last confession...

Dirty chestnut water bubbled from the depths of the pipes in my neck, and threatened to spill, like wretched sewer water, down my face.
This happens every time I see your face.


Uninvited recollections of our past creep up
and get my heart all strung and tangled--
a trapped and wiggling stillborn.
in bloody, umbilical net.

Everyone says that the reason you are this way is because your metamorphosis has yet to take place-- that this is just a phase.
But, against the sage persuasions of our elders, I disagree.

You'll never change.
Breathy prayers are whispered upwards, but they don't make it past the ceiling.

Remember when you told our cousin-- eight years old and frightened of planes-- that hers was sure to crash and kill her the next day?
Or when you held our dog's mouth shut until his eyes grew red, and his desperate wince and whining summoned me to save him?
Or the hell you put our parents through?

Mom still has hope for you.
And as the one who gave you life, it is her duty, I suppose.
I, however, would never waste such a powerful conviction.
Instead, I have wrapped what little hope I had for you in pale green tissue paper, and have tucked it between pairs of ratty underwear and faded socks--
awaiting the day when I need it instead for my own salvation.

I feel nothing for you.
And that, I am convinced, is worse than hatred.
Last month someone asked if I had any siblings and I told them no-- only to realize, seconds later, I was wrong.
I have you.
And worse than blatant exclusion, I'd sincerely forgotten.
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Our mother once threatened that
there's a chance God
will send me to Hell for not
claiming you--
my own brother.


I didn't bother telling her:
Even He wouldn't blame me.

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And it has been three weeks since my last confession....