Fear Is For The Living

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr0e0I5ShKW

I wonder, sometimes, if it will always define me –

If I will always be the twin

With no twin.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy3oVUmwjGL

I wonder, sometimes, if a little of him

Is inside me, just waiting,

Just waiting for me to find it.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe4Sh9ti6UK

I wonder, sometimes, if he hadn’t died,

Would I have?

I wonder, sometimes,

Would it be better that way?

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkBwEPATzPP

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡenEi6CkSlm

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI0bIxQKhPV

I shouldn’t have gone out that day.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfYZHpdUv5P

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUqUZGzz0xi

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ57BK5dtnNf

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxHtExAMEOc

“Luca, you have to go to school.”

School.

A place where I feel his absence

So clearly, so greatly.

“I’m sick, Mama, don’t make me go.”

“Please, Mama, don’t make me go-“

And she doesn’t.

She never does.

She knows

That he should be here to fake-sick with me,

Sitting on our beds, groaning and giggling and fibbing half-heartedly.

We were never able to convince her, not quite –

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9nAEHwxQod

It is so easy now,

Now that there’s nothing to stay home for.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfzd0O6EiCT

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFJ9ArrfsWW

Mama leaves to go to the shop,

“I’ll be ten minutes, top, okay?”,

And the house falls to silence

But the silence hurts, hurts so much, so I

Turn up music on my phone until surely, surely

The hurt of the quiet goes away, goes away

But it never does, never does, and quiet of his absence is

Unbearable

Tense

Attacking me

Clawing my brain through my ears

So I wear his headphones with the volume on max.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMpxs10CRxW

Mama says it’ll make me go deaf.

I don’t care.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr50VDiYnKJ

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxx3gOSZLV

I want to go back

I do

Please.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Lhl6GUDhX

My Mama needs me.

My brother needs me.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgXe7d82GIG

I have homework to do.

Well, schoolwork, but the teachers ‘understand’

Why I can’t be there, on account of my grief,

They ‘understand’ when I turn work in late

With no explanation,

They ‘understand’. I want to ask if they’ve ever lost a brother

Because I know that they haven’t

So how could they possibly understand?

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUNeYfOWP8T

They give me sad smiles and nods when I see them in the supermarket.

They don’t say anything because I’m wearing my music

And they assume I cannot hear them, but I can.

I hear their pity in their half-smiles

In their sad smiles

In their nods of acknowledgement

In their prolonged looks with my Mama, over my head.

They do not understand.

Nobody does.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAxNzCHq32u

I am dead.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1mKEXxnTsI

I can’t go back.

I like the quiet, of it, of death.

It surrounds you, it moves with you,

It comforts you.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmtYexdHVWX

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlRathPfX2E

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡECG7guBNhC

I am an only child

And have been for a month.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsK8vb6tyUv

I don’t like the quiet.

I don’t like the quiet so I cry to fill it.

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjMgWVaPU5b

I wander around the empty house

Everywhere I see is empty of him.

His photo is on the mantlepiece but his eyes are empty,

Mine is beside his

but he isn't beside me, not really, it's lying,

It isn't true! My heart hurts, hurts, hurts,

It is a void

Of his absence

That becomes a black hole and I smash his picture and I smash mine

And there’s glass on the floor and I pick it up and

I throw it at the walls and I

Scream

And I scream and I scream

And Mama comes home and she says,

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcfcTaMUuMU

“Scream, Luca, Scream.

Anger is for the living.

Fear Is For The Living

Your brother fears no more.”

151Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRYHg0JOePT

“Scream, Luca, Scream.”

She gently pulls off his headphones from around my head.

I don't need my music when I make my own, when I cry.

She wraps her arms around me.

She kisses my forehead.

"It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be afraid.

Fear Is For The Living, Luca,

So fear the moment when you don’t anymore.”

ns 172.69.59.197da2

Reading Theme:

Font Size:

Line Spacing:

Paragraph Spacing:

Load the next issue automatically