i have dreams of my dead brother
and though the dreams are there
the memory is sometimes swimming in me
and other times it is harsh
there is an obvious silhouette of him
and though no greeting is extended
he comes in my dreams to tell me a little more of the story
than i was willing to take in before.
often we are at odds
or perhaps we are one in the same
it makes no difference
because once i wake
i again recall that he is lost in me.
my mother and i talk of her hauntings
and how she cannot accept this
and i tell her to just be
with it
in solitude standing
just as he was
in his final moments-
but then again
he is her baby
and i will never understand that
or what it means to have a living in flesh part of you die.
i don't pretend
and i don't try to pacify the anger that she must feel.
we go back and fourth about the details which is a privilege of the living
and we restate the things we've been told and curse at the things we haven't
there was a sudden quake
then silence
and as we unbury ourselves from the rubble
we make slow sense of
the stagger, stumble and trip
of his life.
we learn slowly the walk he danced
gracelessly.
we learn of the tales miserably unfinished
and we try to polish the end-
make it fit the stories that we've been told
of the happy man
that didn't exist at the end of the day in that life.
i hold no grudge to those choices
or those friends
but i wonder
how lost he was
and how lost anyone was who believed the stories he told.
there will forever be a fire
in the solution
and the finding
of him
as he gave up his last breath in the largest of the 5 finger lakes...
how lost could he have been
when he lost himself?
