Jorden

When my brother gets sick and dies
before he ever really lives,
Rage blooms in my blood,
clotting the wreckage of my grief
I sew anger under my skin to smother it
before it leaks and drowns
e v e r y o n e
The earth no longer revolves around the sun-
it follows the path of his life, blinking
into darkness on loop - the disease
spreading to his brain, rage flooding my
blood like endorphins, building up,
somber, stifled...
There’s no room in my veins; they bulge
against the underside of my skin, claw the
inside of my throat and steal the space
from my air. I am
c h o k i n g
on the nothing that is my brother’s life.
Grief ticks inside my rib cage, counting
down the days as notches in my bones as
I walk further from his death.
In the mornings I forget that he is not here
and so I wake twice, once to the sun then
again to reality, and pain floods from my
b r a i n,
down my t h r o a t,
and into my body
I feel his death in my bones.
I don’t know if it is grief or rage that
carves through the core of me, but one of
them scoops me out and leaves hollow
there instead, like a culled field ripe with
opportunity.
Rage thrives in empty space where he
used to live, making me grit my teeth
against its bitter tirade because I cannot
rage at the world, blame the universe or
the disease for killing my brother. There is
no enemy of death, no satisfaction in
screaming without results.
I press my teeth together so hard they
c r a c k .
but I do not. I set my jaw despite my
aching mouth and keep walking, reveling
in the pain that bursts inside my ribs.
Another notch, another day without my
brother. The earth strikes another trip
around, and my family still wakes without
its firstborn s o n