I am your older brother from a far future

of three years ago --- this is our ocean

A gaping wound on the world sprinkled with bones

of the selves we prayed and failed to be.

On the computers below, watch your life

disappear before your eyes, the data corrupts and withers

until you can hardly remember the first time we met,

oh, how I wept to learn another's tongue.

Below the shells lingering at the bottom

is your child self

dancing, writing, drawing,

to the things you swore you abandoned. At

the edge of this red cliff, the wires

our intersecting prophecies will become my home.

At the sink, beneath your dirty dishes :

do you realise that the sun will rise

each dreaded morning? the seas attempt

to pull you under will continue

but the light peaks through the water.

Our horrible wishes might not reach THE SURFACE

but they will reach the skin of my heart.

I tell you of this - as an older brother / so, you know, there is

Someone here.

And I might not be there, in your distant future

to whisper our stories of survival and how love saved us.

"Xe spoke on the edge of the riverbank,

and held close a whisper -

Xyr hands glided the reeds,

And found the moon larger then the eye. When xe returned to the city, there

was no soul there.

With this - xe cracked the stone walls

of xyr childhood home

and found blood and gore in the bricks.

'How long did you keep this from me?'

But with no reply, xe could only fantasize.

When xe returned to the riverbank

a ghost of xyr wolf had eaten away at the reeds

and covered the moon with its terrible

terrible pelt.

Ungroomed, it wept to the stars

That it so blindly covered up.

Xe stroked, fingers nimble, and untangled the wolf,

for it had destroyed the swamp where xe hid

but now, could become a farm of xyr bones."

Was this supposed to save us? Or tell us -

the empty hollow shells of our bodies

can be inhabited by both crab

and soft flesh?

Can you forgive your brother for standing on the riverbank

as the wolf destroyed all,

or do you blame him for not being devoured first?

Do we cultivate a home

in a form too small for our soul? This is not my story

of love. I cannot tell you how to love

or live, for I will disappear into the depths of your memories.

This is your older brother (not by blood, but by me telling you that I am)

gently guiding you to the kitchen.

You may destroy the plates and throw the shards that

weep and scratch

or you may clean them and put them away.

The T.V. screens did not grow down here

they were shattered,

thrown,

tossed,

broken,

pushed. "How do we live beneath

the factories choking gaze?

And they closed her eyes with a thumb,

and told her of the time they lived under

the smog, for they danced and smoked

and held and prayed,

they resisted in the passion of their art

and broke through the clouds for the moon."

But nobody speaks of the broken limbs and muscle

and the decaying teeth and flesh. Truthfully ---

I cannot tell you of a more positive story. I can

keep you at arms length, and point to the sky

and tell the stories featured in the stars, ones that I can never reach.

For I live beneath the surface of this wound,

a fish that cannot breathe under the pressure

if my bones were to be planted as a seed,

who would be there to water them? I did not tread

against the surface,

I did not reach for the sun, as I have instructed you to do

I have lived in the darkest parts

beneath muscle and vein. I have lied to you.

For this is not a story of love, living, hope. It is of murder.

I thought God wanted me to do it, so, I took a butchers knife

and began to saw at my arm. I nearly slammed

the edge upon my fingers,

but I collapsed onto the floor and begged to be forgiven. There is no

sun in my body, there is no hope, I am pure evil

in the form of an older brother.

(I know it lurks beneath my skin -

do you expect me to try again?)

Angels have clawed at my flesh

and begged for a story of survival,

let me show you the wounds, but I will be lying

For I will not survive -- I am the cadaver found at the bottom of the lake

beneath shards of computer screens and dirty dishes.

even as these waves roll over my lifeless body, I think the sun

has wept at the sight of death

but laughed at the life it led.

Your younger selves have played with my ghost

you have cried upon my shoulder, you have lamented lost lives

you have spoken of broken porcelain and of families you wish to abandon,

there is no grace given to me, nor have I expected it :

and I do not claim to be a good older brother,

I simply am an older brother you will grow older than.