we are gathered here today to ignore the empty seat next to me
i tell myself this is how it’s meant to be
laughter passes between the four of us, we’re all reminiscing
all except the one that’s missing
isn’t this peace more than enough?
is anyone going to call us on our bluff?
the vacant chair looms in the dark and my brother’s question brings it to life
                    why did you ask for a table of five?
suddenly I feel small in my seat
i succumb to a tense smile, simple and bittersweet
                     a force of habit, my fault
one by one, we halt
and stare
at the bare
and lonely chair.

Our last Christmas as a family
the day I'll always reminisce
they robbed you of your innocence
there's so many things i always miss

Our last Christmas as a family
before the drugs took you away
I saw the way you smiled
I wish i had screamed at you and said

Our last Christmas as a family
was the best we will ever get
as i know your still abusing
you're too difficult to forget

Our last Christmas as a family
i saw the look inside your eyes
i saw the future of the pain
they had already taken over your life

Our last Christmas as a family
i held you in my arms tight
for if you knew the pain i was in
would you have put up a harder fight?

Dear brother
I miss you

the lion heart
that beats in your chest
the hot-blooded courage
and the loud roaring laughter

We are opposites
and yet so similar
now I am sitting here
a moon without light
a ebb without riptide

Dear brother
I miss you so much

So long, old friend.
The way has lit a path
To new places,
But the bruises we have shared
And patched together
Through the years
Will not be forgotten.

I miss you
And I’ll be missing you
Old friend.
For the clock ticks
Us forever apart
No matter how close
And yet, still,
I know you’re there for me.

Brothers we are
You and I,
Old friend,
And I wish you
The very best in life
As you’ve made mine
Worthy of smiling back on.

And looking forever before my sight
Will I be in waiting
Of our next meeting.
For the way has lit a path
To new places;

So long, old friend.

Muddled yet accountable.
Sober yet lively.
Impassive yet doting.
Mixed bag of traits
define him.
Bowlful of big hearted fondness
he carries to embrace all.
Conviviality and amiability
are his favourite words.
Pile of rendezvous,
easy reach outlook,
entangles him in a maze.
Still an apple of everyone's eye and
quite a loved soul.
Being you and always there,
with joy I proclaim,
cuddling happiness and ease.
Best of our camaraderie,
brimming with our fond memoirs
is yet to be savoured.
Attachment and affection remains,
Love, regard grows each day, to remain forever.
Blessed to have you brother, friend!!

i am lying on my stomach
after having spent hours propped up on my elbows
spent hours reading, sunbathing
spent hours getting drunk and tired in the sun
i am outside our new chicago home
in a courtyard belonging to only us

i am sprawled on the transparent blue plastic of my past
the cerulean beach chair that never made it to a single beach.
its plastic wound and woven around the metal
like nothing i’ve ever seen before

and i fall asleep

and i’m awakened by the raindrops on the low of my bare back

but it is not raining

and i wake up naked, inside, in your arms as you tap out a tune on me

and the blue chair that we put in the shower
when my brother was too weak to stand
because my brother was too weak to stand
is nowhere to be found
even when he went to live in the hospital
that chair
gathered rust
in a closed, dripping shower

we threw it out
it reminded us of a hard time
he was our only surviving souvenir  

i miss the chair
and i miss the person he was before it all
before he gathered all this rust

ashes in my mouth
drank wrong beer can oh shitsky
drink up brother drink

You could desperate hear me start weeping
Ruckus started to crying to crack tangerine
holds one still upright auburn
as an immortal's loneliness fogged or condemned
stays a Sahara burnt hot tambourine
a hangover led Arabian
a broken record
some shattered the bathroom bar.


I wonder for my brother's dowry
on beds too kempt to be called beds
and doorframes and lamps set never high enough to hit again,
to stand to kneel to lock to lash to hold to my brother's body
now felt to me like the female sold fragile to the greater cities with
a vote,
he clearly left his Argentina behind no matter
how she paled, ended struck.


No longer a child or sister to pass as
to take guests in alone
to stand our married couple's cries an unmuteable radio
can't go back to playrooms for imparallel dignities' sake
that made all the noise at night worth it to deal with
I, don't want to play the rook
if no horse of yours' beside.


Now once the scarcity of your voice,
if even morbid,
is to be greeted by me alone,
Adam and Eve we have unable to see,
just for the empty halls of your decision just for me to hit,
your turned leaf hidden agenda of relief,
I recognise my faiths of the old of your endless
mornings supposedly killed by snoring and your
vividness to my thoughts a foreign concept,
to note you resurrected out of mind and out of sight
the congruence picks me out and slaps me that
our cocoon and safe designed for you
was nothing short of a coma web in your eyes
to begin with instead.

...

I look out to my brother's dowry
to hold stubborn, fainted in my nook the head of my brother's body
to sit on his old air this house keeps like a sari gem
he will never long for
again.