Dead Leaves

Dead Leaves

As the leaves rattle in breeze like bullied children, I reflect.
If autumn is another metaphor, it insists the most lovely
Things in this world are the ones leaving it. Dying.
If my life is another poem, this makes my little
Brother a metaphor. Lovely. Leaving. Dying.

For the sake of aesthetics we can call him November.
It’s fitting flesh. He has reddish brown skin and
Half his heart is in a grave. In plotting his demise
He had forgotten I would be home come December.

Maybe I have been the end of him from the very beginning.
It was assumed we would travel in the same direction.
Even our mother used to dress us in synonym.

He always struggled in his English classes and
I’m sure the results are related. He couldn’t
Define himself outside his relation to me.
No wonder he sees life as a prison sentence.

Those fingerprints on his eyes belong to me. I’ve
Reached out to him during dark hours, but I’m gone
Now. I only see him through telephones these days.
I remember every call vividly.

One in particular, sounded like wrist-slit and ankle-sprain.
The tone tinted maple leaf: red, alarming – my brother
Contracting into himself like an unspoken secret.

A tender laugh caved between his cheeks.
A blush surfacing like smoke. He burns
For the sake of another person’s happiness,
Since he understands you cannot
Be a martyr and die of natural causes.

So, he curves his mouth into moth wings.
Kisses the heat. Swallows his Aderol
Pills with a lava flow of vodka. Monk-like.

He’d been squinting at his prospects long enough to
Make the golden-twine of a noose resemble a halo.

People aren’t leaves despite how easy they fall.
We are foolish to consider suicides stunning.

Awestruck by their cold and colors so neither
Our fingers nor voices can be lifted, as the
Falling petals patty-cake the sidewalks softly
As kindergarten footsteps, until the echo
Disappears like cheer at the end of recess.
I often ponder where voices go once they fall to the ground.

I imagine he’d say they don’t ever reach heaven.
I imagine he’d say he couldn’t find the Lord
Even while he was high. I imagine that’s the
Essence of depression, but he knows it.

Melancholy has more mass than Catholics do.
He is by far the heaviest prayer I’ve ever lifted.
He needs help, but doesn’t
Feel comfortable asking for it. Not from me.

But I understand him, because we’re brothers.
The dread of being burdensome is a bond shared
Between us like blood, and bruises, and blue
Jeans neither one can wear anymore.

We both bow out when bowing down goes awry.
We both draw into ourselves like wrinkles.
We both know telephones aren’t happy places.

I wish he’d see we have more in common than the
Surname chaining our hearts to one another.
I tell him this, but he can’t see a locket through the skin.

I tell him not to fear splinters. I tell him they
Are the prices of building beautiful things?
I tell him he has a beautiful spirit. I tell him he is black.
I tell him that his spirit should be skeptical of tree limbs.
I tell him to remember. I tell him to always
Remember dead leaves leaves behind.