my brother's got the best smile in new jersey.
my brother's got maraschino cherries in his cheeks, an indent serving as one solitary dimple, frequently masked under anger and emptiness, the roaring kind. he's got the kind of crooked smile they write about, and he spends so much time hiding it. i wonder how he breathes under such tightly clamped lips, or if his lungs just store up all the air in moments where he actually lets the stars shine, like hibernation or some shit.
my brother's got a joint hanging between his lips, blood lining his eyes, how can he see through the clouds? i ask him in a glance why he has to be high to feel alive. he answers in a bloodshot eye roll that he hasn't lived a day of his life.
my brother's got sick days being consumed like fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies. and maybe you singe off your fingertips and maybe your tongue burns and burns and burns until you're feeling the sahara graze the roof of your mouth but you keep eating the damn cookies anyway. he's failing a few classes and yet he still gets down on his knees and begs to just stay home. my mom storms into his room at approximately 6:53 and tells him to get his ass out of bed. mom doesn't see that he's sick, he's been throwing up oil spills on the carpet cause his brain's been leaking serotonin.
my brother's got too much beer left over from the party and he's sitting on the stoop chugging them. he's not some alcoholic, he tells me, he just doesn't want them to go to waste. maybe he's thinking fuck it, when his bloodstream runs amber, when his cells ferment, the shriveling sound of his liver folding over will distract him from the void he's gazing into with all the grief in the world on his shoulders. he smells sticky and day drunk and a little like cigarettes smoked on the way back from the bus stop. i don't feel bad when i steal a few cans for myself.
my brother's got charcoal smeared skin. dad asks god what happened to his son's cherry wood wrists. god takes a look at the broken boy engulfed in cigarette smoke and blinks first. he says that if you don't have colors you can't feel blue. i guess we both wonder how you can feel pastel pink and golden yellow and lilac purple in a black and white world. he gave up colors to escape this deafening pain inside him.
my brother's got pain wrapped around his esophagus, twisting around his intestines, smothering his heart. he's suffocating beneath his own damn mind, and we watch and watch and watch until he's no longer breathing. there is no heimlich maneuver for when your lungs give up on your brain.
my brother's got asphyxiation listed as his cause of death.
