My Littlest Brother

My Littlest Brother
by me(whatever)

He said he wanted to die.
I heard him as he said this,
the little brother I never knew.

Even though, in several times of pain,
I had said the same.
This was different as a child of nine
spouted my silly words into the air.

I was afraid, and in times pretended to care.
But, I admit, I was the same as my hate;
the only person I cared for was myself.

And after the war,
of two sides of our nationality
I remembered the peace before,
and wanted him to feel it.

I started out without any knowledge,
feeling fake in every pore.
But he accepted the thing I gave readily,
and I became real.

Hugging, reading books at night,
running to meet each other, complimenting on a drawing,
rollerblading in the sprinkling sidewalk, laughing,
and,
always smiling.

I'm striving towards a goal,
a goal I thought impossible before.
you know? that yellow thing that reminds me of daisies and the sun,
the thing called happiness.

The first time I saw him, it was the last day of first grade,
he was purple all over, my newborn littlest brother.
I remembered my feeling that someone wasn't here yet from before,
put my finger in his palm,
and as those stump fingers curled around it,
the feeling was fulfilled.

I remember him being bathed in a dish-like thing,
and my mother wrapping him in a yellow hood towel.

I remember him running around in saggy diapers,
flushing kitchen things down the toilet,
writing his name on the bathroom wall after my mothers new coat of paint.

I had meant to teach him what childhood meant,
what affection meant.
But he was the one who spurred my old woman brain,
and HE re-taught me how to hug,
how to have fun,
how to smile,
what my childhood meant,
and how to love.

He doesn't say he wants to die anymore.