My brother slammed the door shut,
banishing the bitter winds outside
from intruding upon our solitude.
Living on our own wasn't as hard as we'd thought it'd be.
"You're back late," I remarked from my seat on the couch.
He ignored me in his sour mood.
I decided to head to bed.
I fulfilled the promise we had made to each other,
to look out for one another
as sister and brother.
The shower ran for a while,
but eventually, I heard him creak up the steps
and took comfort in the fact
that tonight, he came home.

Early the next morning,
in the darkness of dawn,
I stumbled down the stairs to clean up for the day.
I turned on the TV and watched the news.
Another ****** occurred in the area.
I'm convinced it's a demon with unbiased prey.
The channel rolls on.
A car similar to ours was abandoned on the scene.
What was I seeing?
I was just exhausted for the time being.
It must be from the little sleep I got.
He would've never driven so recklessly
and leave the car behind,
only to walk all the way home.

The coffee I had started wasn't finished,
and the casserole I was baking wouldn't be done in time.
I decided to take a shower to clear my head.
I opened the bathroom door, closed for an odd reason,
for we never shut the door,
and was greeted by a scene of red.
The marble sink covered in the handprints of blood.
The white, tiled walls stained and spotted.
A stench rising from the clothes that laid on the floor, knotted,
and in the shower, streaks of red on the bottom.
I covered my mouth in an attempt to stop the scream
coming from the fear boiling inside of me.
Tears streamed from my face.
What did my brother do when he got home?

I took a step back
into my brother's arms.
He pushed me into the cursed room
and jammed the door shut so I couldn't escape.
I fell into the shower, into the pool of dyed water,
and cried from the anticipation of my impending doom.
What was that look in his eyes?
The very thing of which I was so afraid,
looming in the shade
of his humanity's fade?
When had he strayed so far away
and became that way
to allow the devil to reside in his heart?
What had he let into our home?

A few days passed.  I drank from the shower
and rationed what was left of the toothpaste
until one day, my mind snapped.
I couldn't stand remaining in this torturous space
scarred by the blood of someone else.
I no longer wished to be trapped.
I slammed into the door, once, twice,
and the third try it opened,
slightly broken,
and crashed against the wall before closing.
My brother was nowhere to be found,
yet his room, forbidden, was locked somehow.
I broke it open and found a second scene,
a body bleeding out on the floor of my home.

I fell to my knees and wept into my hands,
coated in the blood of my brother.
The knife protruded from his head.
Sirens pulled up to the apartment
and police rushed inside the house I once loved.
they pulled me away from my brother, dead.
I refused to go, so instead, I screamed.
I cried and sobbed loudly.
I couldn't just leave,
so I clung hopelessly to my brother's sleeve.
They demanded me to release him, but I hugged him in my arms.
I couldn't let them take him away too.
I grabbed the knife and felt a pain in my chest,
and collapsed into the darkness enshrouding my home.

Do you feel it?
The disease eating away at your heart?
It slumps in decay and filth,
black with rot and throbbing to the beat of the maggots.
It never starts this way, though.
It grows from the innocence of childhood
into the monster that is truth.

Everyone is planted with a seed
doomed to sprout and overtake them.
It consumes our heart, the gateway to our soul,
and spreads its rot to others.
Eventually, we all end up wilted,
limp with the pain emanating
from every fiber of our beings.

Life is silly that way.
It's a puzzle in every aspect of the word.
You try to finish only to realize
you're missing a single piece.
And as you search for it upon the ground,
everything else begins to crumble.
If left alone, it will atrophy away
and vanish as if it never existed.

They asked why I wanted to commit suicide.
I twisted their words and asked them the same thing.
Is there any point in living?

They said I play a role in the world.
I wondered whether or not the universe was wrong
or if I was always meant to be in pain.

They said I had a family that loved me.
I asked if bruises and burns were signs of their love.

They said I had friends who depended on me.
I asked if friends steal your food and money.
Were friends supposed to put me down
and treat me like the trash I am?

They said I had something to live for.
I inquired as to what that could be.

They said they cared about me.
I called out their desperate attempt to stop me.
Did you care about me before you knew anything?
Are you just saying sweet things to get close to me
only to leave me behind like the rest?

They said everyone makes mistakes.
I told them, the only mistake in my life
was existing in the first place.

I explained the paradigm I discovered.
Those who feel the most pain
have the darkest hearts.
Once it's all rotten and wilted,
the monster takes over and shows them the truth.
The only meaning in life
is death.

Everything is made only to die.
We serve no true purpose,
just existing to cease existing.
A never-ending cycle I wanted no part of.

They refuted my claim, but I could see
they were still searching for that lost puzzle piece.
Purpose.
They thought it had fallen when in reality,
it was never placed in the box.

They said I was mistaken.
They were right.
Living was a mistake.