I’d know you anywhere. One of those irritating people who had been themselves since the very day they were born. You always had that unwavering sense of justice, never entertaining debate, you stood steadfast in the face of those who undermined it. In most of my dearest memories I am the object of your fierce protection. Though, when I’m not being entirely honest, I tell myself that we never got on, never did see eye to eye. I never much cared for you, and neither you I.
The age difference between us was never as significant on paper as it felt, in that house, in those years. I always was, at most, your feeble, childish reflection. I was twelve or thirteen when you went away. You were barely fifteen though I remember you being a man. I remember how you towered over our mother and father. How I cowered half way up the stairs and watched you walk out the door. How you didn’t look back at me. I studied myself in the mirror that night, hands shaking, face swollen with tears. I pulled at my hair and ran my hands through it roughly, sucking my cheeks into my teeth, hoping to see someone that resembled you looking back at me. From now on, I promised, I’d be in control. I’d be cool, collected, aloof, unwavering. I’d stand taller than my stature, my hands wouldn’t shake. That was yesterday, it was forever ago.
In the years between then and now, I mastered cool. I sneered, I was assured. I watched my life unfold from a third-person view, I laughed at just the right moments, sneered, raised an eyebrow, mask on, I never let it slip. I dug a moat around myself, my ribcage was a portcullis, kept permanently up. I got so good at the role, I always knew what to say. It was intoxicating. I was so good. Slowly the lines, once brazen, began to blur. All at once they were entirely opaque. I was all everyone wanted of me. He was I. I was so good.
Sometimes I’d see you, in those years. You and I were the same, though at the time we believed ourselves entirely opposed. At least, I did. You’d saunter around, stony faced and remote, a single eyebrow raised. You were the sun, smiling faces in your orbit. I burned and burned. Red hot and searingly cold. Green, insidious, explosive. I wonder now whether you were wearing a mask too, though I never thought so at the time. Maybe it just came naturally to you - the whole charade? I wish I could ask.
In hindsight, thirteen to sixteen were short years. I’m not sure how such a chasm opened between us. I’m sure you had a part in it. I probably did too, but sometimes I indulge myself, thinking if only you’d asked me once more. If only you’d come back for me, hand outstretched. I tell myself, I’d have said yes. In this version of the story you’re the villain. You’re absorbed in happiness, selfish, gorging on sunshine, you seldom think of me. I like this version, it goes down easy. I imagine everything engulfed in flames, everything is wretched. You are everything, you are in pain.
There’s a small boy that lives in the hollow of my chest. He cries for you. I chastise him. I burn white hot and searingly cold. This is more of a regular occurrence than I’d care to admit.
The chasm has opened far too wide. I stand, toes curling over the edge. I cannot see the other side. Waves crash against the stony face of the cliff. It is an ocean. My mouth opens to call out, I produce only a croak. The rock face beneath my feet splinters, a moment before so secure. I plummet towards the water, awakening just before I taste salt.
You are both the monster underneath my bed and the warm arms that cradle me in the night.
Tomorrow will be the last day of my life. For once I will execute on a plan, seamlessly, silently. You will not notice. I wish that one day you learn of it and that I am redeemed, even if only slightly. Since everything I have ever been has been defined by you, its is only natural my death be the same.
Yours in perpetual eternity.
