It took fourteen years for my brother to meet my eyes.
That summer was the first time people mentioned the change in us.
I noticed. He didn’t.
(This is the story of us.)
I bear the weight of memory
While he crosses the street to avoid it.
What a strange thing,
Trauma manifesting in the material.
I carry it in my feet.
Him, in the knees.
Pes planus.
Osgood-Schlatter.
Both born with the pain prepaid.
Alcoholism.
Narcissism.
When you have spent your whole life surrounded with chronic pain, You learn young to tune it all out.
Over the span of the past 400 days,
Three medial menisci ruptured, one lateral,
Two wrists shattered, one ACL torn,
A kneecap dislocated, and a MCL sprain.
The jokes ring around every table,
Dance around those gathered by the fire.
“What Brittle Bones!”
They chant, we laugh.
I catch his eyes
(They look like mine),
I hear the silence behind them
(It sounds like mine).
How much did I take for granted?
What I wouldn’t give to climb the Rocks once more (They built over them last year),
To carelessly ram into third base
(Fiona and Mike threw away the hose),
To make worlds come to life
(You can be Blue, I’ll be Green),
To share the Sunday silence with you like we used to. I wish it hadn’t taken fourteen years.
Oh, the time we wasted
On these brittle bones!
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