An open letter to my brother, a child I never asked to raise

I can’t help but consume your despair as my own, your emotions so closely tied to my own, I often wonder if we have any separation between us, we were born for each other, keeping each other from ending our days in a shallow grave

Our lives outlived our use, dashed upon the rocks of our mother’s expectations of servitude, our only use in how we can solve her problems, her mistakes, and her illnesses, all of which we inherited, sickly and full of her disfunctions, breaking down in the kitchen just trying to feed ourselves in this world we were raised to think we'd never see to 30

Manic nights spent loitering in our bedroom, our mother in tow as she spilled her wishes for admiration, her affection absent and unspent, kept for her own, screamed declarations of love, retracted when her husband's hand grew near, her eyes filled with fear and defeat

Your eyes flutter under the weight of your days, the color fading fast as you your breath catches in your throat. I can’t help but wonder if it’s your last, only to see your breathe rise and fall in your chest again. Apnea kept us awake and in tears listening to the muffled terrors from the room next door

We’re so different, you in full light and color, childlike, me in the shadows, dark and pale, aged too young, mother’s caregiver, your imposed mom, righting our mother's wrongs so you can see adulthood, so you can have a semblance of childhood. I find myself watching you sleep, worried and jealous I can't be you, beloved in this house of terrors, a boy for your dear abusive father

Her face, sallow and vacant, lay on a hospital bed, our eyes distant and glassy, reflections of our past projected on invisible panels. How many near death experiences can one mother have? How many emergencies can we have a year? How often can she possibly need us? How can i ever get free of her again? How many calls can I let go unanswered?

I whisper goodbye to you, my brother and my child, alone in my room 10 years later, tears rolling off my cheeks, destroyed self worth puddling on the floor, stains on my clothes mirror the stains on my soul, dirty and sticky wet, red and clear bleed together.

I had left you, in one terrific display of self preservation, a decision I would come to see as my best choice, and my worst mistake, a day I will never take back, I am alive, just hardly, but I left you in our mother's house, alone and defenseless, the golden child left alone just like his sister always was, I cry into my pillow with worry every night.

Our mother’s mistakes, we continue. You forgot, chemically dependent, she forgot, lobotomized in an accident, perpetuated by shock therapy, leaving only me to remember her horrific deeds, alienated even in the family I kept alive and raised when I needed someone to raise me so desperately

I miss my kid brother, the version that no longer exists, faded and jaded with time and traumas, at times I grasp at a hope I may miss my mother one day, but I never quite get there, lost in a looped pondering for what closure would look like, for what you would have looked like with a normal childhood, hell, for what I could have been, or could have achieved without our mom, without your daddy dearest