I am aware that it is harmful
that I consciously convince myself
of the comforting fantasy
that he is just an old friend who I fell out of touch with.
That somewhere he is living a life:
Following his dreams,
Falling in love,
Making strangers smile.
That I will see him again,
in a crowded bar,
or at a backyard birthday,
where we will catch up like we do
and he will be there and the world will be right.

Then it will hit me.
In the midst of mundane daily details,
If I let my mind go numb for the smallest of seconds,
reality will rush in and engulf me
and scratch on the back of my skull
and crash through my chest with more mercilessness
and more weight
than I knew the world could carry
(it is far too much for me to carry).
I am forced to remember
why the night feels a little more black
with one less lighthouse
to remind me where home is.

But sometimes I blindly smile.
Because how lucky were we,
Peter Pan’s lost boys,
to have had such a brilliant brother
to have lit up our sky at all?