Vera Podell

Swelter

I think I heard his steps
The sound of body hitting floor
I once was very close to breaking out
Though now it feels so long ago
I hoped to never see this house again
The one that smells like pills
The one that’s rotting from its base
Our whole lives it felt like a forest fire
Where we felt like by a fireplace
If I could choose to get him out first
I would
But never have ever did I so
Now I stand just beside it
Scared to move
To see even a little more
Why was I first to find it?
To open up the door and see the image
That be burnt forever in my brain
Why do I have to look again?
Why is this place still so the same?
I have a burning throat
The body is lying on the tiles
It doesn’t look like my brother at all
It’s the same bathroom I choked him in
When he was just around four
If he is the one whose heart does not beat
Why do I feel like
Blood froze inside my veins?
The blood that is insanely close to his
Up to the type and DNA
I need to retch my blood stream whole
I need to yell at him for choosing this one way
Don’t know which option is exactly worse
If it was a plan
Or a mistake
I hate him for my love for him
Its like the poison inside me
The only heritage of mine
The memory of my clenched fists
His little neck between my palms
The absence of the cure
The body on the tiles
And swelter making it a blur.