Dear Brother, do you still believe in Santa Claus?
Whose cold nose matches your ****** one,
Who falls down chimneys like you are pushed down stairs,
Who is isolated at the North Pole as much as you are in the world.
And when you asked for friends for Christmas,
You got insults, a broken arm, and a football.

Dear Brother, do you still believe in a God?
Who could walk on water
But not get your head out of the toilet.
Who gave Moses the power to part the Red Sea,
But not your sea of helpless tears.
Who answers all prayers,
But replied to yours with a loud, defeated silence.

Dear Brother, do you still believe in love?
That boy you met with hazel eyes and a heartbeat
Was a stronger drug than ones you use now.
But left you more broken than the ***** ever did.
You stitched yourself up, only to fall flat again
In love, hate, then shattering like the beer bottle
When you discovered he was only taking a bet.

Dear Brother, do you still believe in life?
Between drugs and drinks, have you found peace?
Or a reason to live, in deep depths of the night?
Do you know Spring comes after Winter
And solemn clouds fall, fail, forfeit to the sun?
Your Earth was stopped, turned away from the light
Leaving you in the cold, trapped between nightmares.

Dear Brother, I hope you believed in the afterlife
After your stomach spit out the sadness-stopping pills.
After your wrist wrote scars like lyrics to the beat of silent screams.
After I ran in one minute too late.
To see you, hanging in peace from the ceiling fan
Fun, I mean gun, still loaded to your left, so you would not fail, flail, flinch this time.
With a note to the right with three words:
*“Dear Sister,
No.”

I recognized him, not by his ruffled hair,
But by the way he ran his fingers through it.
Not by the clothes he wore,
But the way it shook as he nervously bounced his leg
Like this was our first date again.
Not by his bag or flowers,
But by the scratchy marks on his coffee cup
Showing how picky the boy is.
When I sat across from the boy, so familiar,
I knew it was him by the tinge of a smile
When he made a joke.
And by the way his nose scrunched up
When he realized his coffee was still not right.
And the rhythmic tapping as he stirred more sugar in
Just so he can make jokes about me
Being as bitter as coffee when he returns.
He could look completely different,
And I would still know him better
Than I know myself.
For, when we said goodbye,
I recognized him not by his lips,
But by his kiss.

You struggled to make friends the first day of high school.
You lied about your interests, and changed your style
Just to be in a group
Who got drunk every Friday, and high every Saturday.
Who screamed, “**** *******, get money,” at the top of their lungs
Like it was their teenage religion, and they were the preachers.
From being homeschooled, to participating in that cross-faded crowd,
It was a big leap for you merely to say the phrase, the prayer,
Much less act upon it, pushing yourself over your limits, once again.
It is your senior year now, and the cliff into chivalry
Is one you could not even consider jumping off anymore.
Your mom drug tests you once a month, shame on her face.
And you have too many petty offences to make anyone outside your group proud.
Sports were too cool for your group; you have to be sober to play, apparently.
And if you had anything higher than a C in a class, you were kicked out.
To “go with the nerd groups” and be the topic of next Friday’s teases.
Now everybody hates you, the kid who was so quiet on the first day
Who is on a path to nowhere, with, “**** *******, get money,” as your only prayer.

If I could freeze a moment in time,
May it be the moment I lost him.
The frame where his love and lust turned to dust
Faster than a shooting star,
And more painful than realizing for the first time
That wishes do not come true.
So I can study the look of his face
When his façade fades,
And anger becomes all too real.
So when my therapist asks how I am,
I will be able to see the face, his face,
Of unforgiving, furious forlorn
In the ink bruises blotched on the card.
Funny that my first word was “ink”
And my first love was the face frowning in the flecks of it.
Freeze the frame I lost him
For, then I will not fall for it in the future
Trying to stitch someone together
So they can simply snip the ties
That once held me in one piece.
And maybe the reason hugs feel right
Is because each is a thread
Building stronger, binding my lost pieces tight,
Back to where they belong on my body.
Freeze the frame I lost him
So he will stand beside me once more
Before I forget how his hands felt
Around my waist.
Because I only feel the burn of them
Around my throat,
Stealing my breath away
A different style than before.

Freeze the frame I lost him
Until I realize that I did not lose him-
He lost me.

Take away my sight, if you are kind,
Because then I will not have to see
Them together, and from my mind,
Impeding, dark thoughts be set free.

Take away my ability to smell
So my nose no longer burns from
The smell of ***** or the ***** that fell
When I realized the Monster I have become.

Take away my hearing, I plead of you.
But let his voice be the last thing I hear.
In trouble, it has been the sound to pull me through.
And him abandoning me, is my only true fear.

Take away my sense of touch,
Because at least I will no longer flinch
At the sympathetic shoulder-grips and nudges,
And at the sight of them, my nails digging into skin.

Take away my ability to taste.
Please. I cannot get his flavor off my tongue,
Even after drowned with ***** that raced
Down my throat, and still, less than him stung.

But you can never take my sense of love.
Try as hard and long as you desire.
This is the one thing you will not get rid of.
For eternity, love will always transpire.