Black Box

Prison Yard

When I was a kid, my brother would wake up shaking.

He came to me. Me.

And lay his woes at my feet like a dead bird.

Because we knew what would happen if she heard us, saw the thing.

So with my fumbling child's hands,

I tried to dig a grave for his dread.

Little fingers and knees scraping through topsoil, stained dirty now.

Just a child playing protector, pulling trinkets from a shelf of placebo safety.

Braving the secret prison yard of the house's common areas.

Not yet aware enough, careful enough, to avoid the angry spotlight vision of the guards.

But I did not break under it's interrogation, would not let her see a weakness in my brother.

So I buried that dead bird in me.

Swallowed the suffering, to get rid of it, letting it become me.