The Way It Is

He had always been more like the younger brother. Always free spirited, always creative, always bothersome to his brother. He was one to complain about the lifestyle he had chosen. Always one to create the things that bothered him instead on reflecting on all of his gifts. Maybe, he was just creating a skewed reality for himself. Either way, he was stuck in the dream sequence.

Every day was the same. Awake, bright and early, and detox just to retox.

Every day was the same. Watch the miles that were traveled and the populations that fly by. It was unreal. It was unfathomable. The bus wheels kept rolling while individual lives were being lived all around him. Some good, some bad, but all were discerned as better. Better than his own.

Every day was the same. Gerard would arrive to the location. The empty seats stared up at him. They were reminders of the lives that passed through here each night. All the people he envied. They were normal. They were tried and true. They were flawless.

Every day was the same. Gerard would grab his paints from under the bus. The oils, the watercolors, the pastels, and the graphite that would help him through the day. Each day was a different image in his mind, a different inspiration to draw from. But they were never any good. Always trashed or burned or drown before the night. His hate for his art pictures was always the same, yet he never skipped a day.

Every night was unbearable. The crowd would trickle in and he would watch from the sidelines as they awaited his arrival. But who did they think he was? A god, a genius, a rolemodel? All of these words tormented Gerard. He was none of these things.

Every night was unbearable. He would try his hardest. He really would. He’d ease up to the edge of the stage; towards them. He saw all their beautiful faces and bright smiles. He looked back and saw his brother, his rock, creeping into the recesses of the stage. Why couldn’t he be Mikey? Why couldn’t he hide away?

He would try though. He would hide away every night with a bottle of potent personality changing liquid. He’d try to consume as much as possible. Try to change himself with it. But he never succeeded. He always just awoke the next morning with a headache and a foggy memory.

Since childhood, he had always had a certain jealously for his brother. His ability to blend into the scenery and to be taken advantage of. Gerard was tired of taking advantage of everything, for often he would mess it all up. He wanted to be taken advantage of. To not be considered as any high or mighty thing.

But, indeed, he was always playing the role of the younger. He was talented, he was brave, but he was also shallow and too easily flustered. He could never be relied on. To unpredictable for his parents to follow. Although, they did try; they tried to follow him with worried looks in their eyes and heavy hearts that you didn’t need superpowers to see.

Mikey was always there for him though. He would never judge him aloud, or criticize his actions. Mikey knew that Gerard was already critical on himself. He didn’t need the additional strife.

Mikey was always the compassionate, steadfast child. He was always disgustingly polite, curiously wistful, and inhumanly humble. Gerard would have traded all his talents for these ones. He wanted to be good. He wanted to be trustworthy. He wanted to be Mikey.

So he continued being pensive and painting, but never patient. Just wishing for Mikey’s presence to overtake him. Waiting for an evolution to take place. It was his dream as misconceived and misunderstood as it was.