i can only promise you
one thing

and that is that someday
there will come a moment
where i
snap.

they always told me that
depression was
anger turned inward
which i understand

but this body of mine can only
hold so much

and i can promise you
there will come a day
when i just
snap.

i'm already
cracking

and i can feel all the
anger inside
trickling out
through the
hairline fractures
in my emotions.

i can only promise you
this one thing

i don't know what will
happen
but i'm afraid for when
it does

because i remember two
moments in my past
very clearly
burned into some
heavily scarred portion
of my memories.

i remember when there was
a board somewhere
behind his door
behind his eyes
and i remember when there was
a hole where my
doorknob used to be
heart used to be.

and both times
i remember
screams
threats
and tears
i cried
and panic
cold
dark
panic set in.

he was screaming
through the door
and i can still
hear it.

i know
like i
couldn't
help it
he couldn't
help it
he just
snapped.

if i dig somewhere
below the
headache
i can still hear him.

he swore
i remember he swore
and screaming
is not a big enough word
to accurately describe
his voice
and the way the rage and
hatred still transcends
all time and space
gaps between the facts.

i can only wonder
if there was anyone
in the basement
or across the driveway
who heard how
he was going to
**** his family
**** himself.

and i wonder if anyone
ever knew
how my entire world
seized
and the teetering stability
so crucial
that i acquire
fell.

to this day
i don't know why.

all i know when we talked on the phone
he said "there are some scary people here"
and i couldn't understand
how he could be
a scary person by night
and my brother by day.

years later i stood in a hallway
next to some locked doors
and i could hear a ping-pong game on
the other side.

they told me that it was the
adult ward.

and i thought about the scary people
and then i thought about me
in the adolescent ward
and wondered if i had become
a scary person too
but i still don't know.

i don't remember that
he came to see me
but i remember that
she said
he was
upset.

one day my other
brother told me that he
had had four suicide
attempts.

but all i remember seeing was
the two a.m. kitchen
conversations about
God
perpetual blue lights
from the crack under
his bedroom door
until the sunrise
and nights where he never
came home.

there were three doors
down that hallway
one had a barricade
one had up all nights
and one had a hole
where the doorknob used to be.

we're in different hallways now
ones where the doors aren't
all in order
but i can still hear the echos
and feel the separation
pulling us apart
over meals that i would rather
eat alone
and weekend car rides spent
with headphones in.

and the walls have been painted
but i can still see every word
written in invisible ink
around each window frame

the story of a family
that slowly snapped.