Loss

For my brother

I miss you , I do,

There is a space within my chest

that burns whenever your name is mentioned.

It is mentioned often.

You are gone and a piece of me is absent now,

a piece of us all.

It is irretrievable and will stay that way.

I liked being the middle child of five

was familiar with all that the position entailed,

I am now the second eldest.

How do I play this?

My vision has shifted,

I am the striker expected to keep goal.

This was never where I was intended to be.

We are all out of alignment without you.

I thought you would always be there.

How naive of me to imagine

we would all make it to old age.

People die daily, why should we be immune?

'Were you close?' people ask and I reply

'How could we not be'

Five children crammed in to the backseat

of the car .

Such proximity lends itself to co-operation at best.

You were there, moving on quietly with your life,

then you were not,

now when people ask about siblings

I find myself unsure of how to reply,

Do I have a brother?

I choose not to mention you at times

it is neater that way.

Yet your loss remains with me always

a shadow in my peripheral vision

demanding attention at the strangest of times.

There are days when I am unable to complete

the simplest of tasks without tears

It will not always be so,

there will come a time when

I will remember you with a fondness

absent of pain.

There will be guilt when it happens

but it will happen, just not today.

There is a space within my chest

that burns whenever your name is mentioned.

I miss you . I do.

Reviews

[Simone]

oh this was so sad. i really like your writing. your very talented. and im sorry for your loss.