Dear sister,
I love you
I did before I knew you. In the back of a van,
empty soda can held between clasped hands, my mouth praying for a sister before I could hold her or know her or grow alongside her
I prayed all the same but still
You hurt me
When they called Dad and said I wouldn’t meet you. I kneeled to God in silence, not quite knowing what I was saying when I squealed “God, give me a sister, and I promise I’ll love her,”
I promise I love you
I did the day they called Dad and said plans changed. That I would meet you. I was five but felt drunk as I stumbled to the lawn and found dawn staring at the van carrying you to a new home, and oh I now remembered I had left the can in there, metal heating up like my stomach and my mind and what’s she going to be like and how’s she going to look and will she be a whiny baby or a peaceful one but I don’t really care because I really really want what’s best for her but
You hurt me
and you weren’t even there. It was years later when you did, a warm June night. The cicadas shed skin as me and my kin stared at a paper pamphlet that dared say your brain wasn’t right. Try as I might, I don’t know what I thought that day. The day the skin of childhood shed off, replaced with a thin coat of adulthood. How could I sleep that night, knowing each new daylight might not be so bright? How could
I love you
And still I did. Arms hugged you as you screamed and kicked and bit, but you didn’t know you were dealing those hits. I threw myself at you like a soldier under a grenade and every time you exploded a piece of me was never recovered. As much as I tried to deny it,
You hurt me.
Soon I’m crying in the closet, it’s been an hour now and you haven’t stopped screaming. But I’ve given too much of my pieces so now i’m scattered on the floor, longing for something more.
Wishing to be better so that
I could love you
Love like I promised. Like you promised to take a shower but never did, said you wouldn’t get mad if you couldn’t have my stuff but you were, said you’d be able to calm down and wouldn’t punch a hole in the wall again but you did this time and you screamed and yelled and
You always hurt me
Rarely with your fists. It’s what you say that punches deeper into my chest, each thrust towards my vest carving a nest harboring all those little jabs you yelled when you didn’t mean it. “I wish I lived with my real family, I wish I didn’t know you, I wish I could run away, I hate you.” And I was ok with that, you never meant it. So despite those words,
I love you
But then you turned on yourself. “I wish I never felt these things. I wish I didn’t exist. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.” And when you said that
You hurt me
A part I didn’t know could break in my heart tore in two. But I told myself you didn’t mean it, you didn’t really feel that way, you’re only in 3rd grade, I should just play the charade because it’s never personal, like Mom and Dad say, I shouldn’t let this stay in my heart or anything because
I love you
And I thought you didn’t mean it until the worst day Ive seen in my life happened after school got out on the fifteenth for finals. I don’t like thinking about that night, despite the passage of that trial. Maybe I’m in denial but I now laugh when I remember the sight of the cops arriving, thinking I was the riff raff Mom and Dad called about, not the seven and a half year old in the other room. While they put out your blazing fumes, I sat in a cold sweat of doom, the thought looming that they’d take you somewhere else forever which wasn’t true, but I didn’t know that because
You hurt me
So bad that I couldn’t talk to you anymore so I didn’t. I was out the door of the house when I got my car, I busied myself afar with more jobs and friends and floors to walk through but every time I take the keys and turn the lock and walk into the house I never stay near the floor you roar on. Walls between so I can’t hear your calls and bawls But I say to myself that
I still love you
And I do, but from a distance. And soon I distanced myself from you in everything. My writing, my speaking, my laughing and my crying. All separate, not a parade to your charades that used to define me. I say I’m free
But you still hurt me
So I still write these words, because a piece of me still lies with you.
And I’ll always love you.
Keep up the good fight, sis.
Sincerely,
Your older brother
Comments