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For My Brother, For the Lost, For Us I had this most beautiful dream: That my brother was still alive, in a halfway house where I went to see him. He was in their industrial kitchen drinking coffee. He hugged me. And this is what I wrote upon waking. You wake up, the smell of his beautiful, long hair still clinging to you, the warmth of his generous hug still surrounding you. You remember it like it was real, wish it was real. Oh, why can’t it be real?
Why can’t the God you believe in make it be? Just change the rules and make it different. Give you one more chance--just one more--to save him, because this time you just know you that you would get it right. Because now you know that love really can conquer all. Death has taught you, driven you to your knees. And you’ll make it work if you just have one more chance.
But that’s not possible, no matter how much your heart is breaking all over again, no matter how barren the world is all over again, no matter that you believe in miracles and and ultimate redemption. No matter that you always believed in him most of all.
So you try to force yourself back to sleep, back to the dream, back into his arms, back to where his happiness is possible and hope is spread wide across his face—like it never was when he was alive. Where he is reborn, untainted by broken promises, battered hearts, shattered blessings. Where he’s tired of being the black sheep, the junkie, the broken child grown into a broken man, the angry boy let loosed an angry man. Tired of his own careless disregard for all that was sacred, all who loved him. In a place where he’s learned to give instead of take.
The dream, let me linger in the dream: You cling to your pillow, press your eyes tight against the summer morning. Who knew that sunlight could be so callous?
Give me back his heartbeat against my chest: Your brother, your wounded soldier, once again robust. Made sturdy, made impeccable, made resplendent.
Then just a few minutes more of the sweetness of this dream: "Only a few, give me that. At least that." But nobody is listening
And life, the day, the small, mean world…is jealous and pulls you back: You can’t have him anymore, not that you ever did. And though you don’t want to believe, don’t want to know that the dream is gone, don’t want to face its iron veil on this side from where you can’t ever get back—you leave your bed, a stone in your chest. You are not a savior. And he was never yours to save.
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