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by its_petrichor

by its_petrichor

I imagine you as one of those 15-year-old basketball-playing skinheads with white airforces and a bucket hat
you'd watch tiktoks all day and show the smallest of interest in the incredible mountains all around us on family vacations

that's where I am now you know
I've been sitting on the balcony of our homey rented guest house for a while now
reading

it hit me like a train on the track
your absence

and this stupid nauseating knot clenched my throat and I couldn't breathe for the mere fact that the chair next to me was empty
that you're not here
you are dead

and now I'm crying like a fucking baby suddenly realising why I've been writing about death my whole life
I've been grieving you for years without knowing

I've been writing about a sister missing her brother in my every story
you are in everything I write

I would ask dad why they took you away from me but I am scared to know the truth
I'm scared it'd be something ugly and dreadful and entirely their fault
and I'd have to learn to forgive them all over again

and what if he catches me balling my eyes out right now? what do I say? that I miss my brother? the one who was never even born?

but I do, you know
I miss you so much
so much that I want to scream until I can't utter a sound
I want to hug you so tight and love you like no one else would dare to

I would be your home
I would be your best friend
I'd be the only person in the world who'd understand you through and through and the only one to whom you'd be enough just the way you are