The Division Bell

I always believed my life began with an ambulance ride and a stomach pumping, a good intentioned overdose.

Sleeping next to me was my blood, my infant brother cradled to sleep with shapeless dreams of a bright future, without a second thought or worry of what was to come.



The division bell rings.



Many times I fell asleep pondering my own stupidity, shedding tears for my baby brother. I neglected to care when he started school, life was so simple for one so youthful and full of possibility.



The division bell rings as we go through the motions of our short existence.



My friends watch with wonder and shock as I slowly crumbled at the edges. My family unit crashed as my world collapsed and all I could do was sit and watch as wine coolers, lies and secrets tear and gnaw at life as I knew it.

Yet a young boy sits by my side, barely comprehending and he compensates by sheltering his thoughts from us, he invents his own language with the boy next door, we chastise him for his creative and imaginative mind, forever stemming the flow of new ideas from manifesting themselves.



The division bell rings and what comes next becomes foggy.



His heart becomes tainted. I stand in front of him and tell him I hate him as he starts to cry but it only makes me angrier, my brother I am truly sorry, forgive the fire of my youth and my teenage hatred of the world.



First loves sting left him crippled and paralyzed, vulnerable to malcontent, melancholy and brash pride. He hurts himself alone in his room at night. When you sat there in the hospital alone and afraid, learning what it felt like to be abandoned, I told myself that I hated him as I cried and shed my youth away alone in the basement, refusing to even go see him.



When you began to distance yourself from us I withdrew, I told myself that you were just dumb and a screw up but you were just reaching out for help only to have your hand knocked away by those you trusted.



My little brother… I write this because I love you, yet am too afraid to tell you. I wrote this poem from a broken heart from the things I have said and done. Blame can, and should be passed to me for your actions. The last time I touched you was with a punch to your nose, spilling deep red blood across my door- you were just angry, but so was I. As time has changed us both I must begin to understand that what has become of you, is what you are. There is no going back, there is no more influencing you as an older brother should, my job is over and I have truly failed you.



When our family fell apart, you should have had me to lean on but you did not. It is a wrong I can never correct. When the day comes when I can muster the courage to forgive myself for what I have done, I will approach you with my head held high and ask you for your forgiveness as well. I know not the last time that I hugged you or told you that I love you.



The day when one of us stands at the altar and opens a new chapter in life, I want you to be there, as my brother and not a stranger. I want you to be by my side like it used to be before nights with gun shots and police, before weekends at a dumpy hotel room and wine coolers in shopping carts. Times when we built forts and when you protected me from getting stung by a bee in our backyard on that old rusty swing. The afternoons filled with exploring woods and sewer systems, playing video games and collecting cards. I want it to be you who realizes that I am the one who failed you.



I write all this from the dark part of my heart, the secret place we bury our greatest tragedies, the ones we live through each and every day, the moments that color our perspective of the world and the experiences we go through, I write it in hopes that I can begin to forgive myself.

The division bell continues to ring and ring and ring into this eternal night with a deep resounding echo as our lives parade for years without knowing brotherly love.