Brother

Another holiday dinner disaster.
Why should it be different than
The rest. Ruined.
It makes you
happy
You say to me as you take
Another drag on your cigarette.
Smoke blown
Into my
Face.
As it clears, your mocking sneer
Revealed
My misery is your
Pleasure.
Pushing poison with pursed lips.
Trying to infiltrate
My being.
Smoke stings my lungs as
Your words try to
Kill my soul.
My spirit.
My being.
Your hatred of me rise like gas from a swamp.
Invisible yet deadly if
I didn’t know it
Was present.
Here, take on this form, offered by this beast
With his flabby arms and
Bloated gut.
Put on this distorted costume
We both remember so well.
You couldn’t break me with your
Fists so you try something more
In tune with your ability to score
Another hit on my mind, the core
Of my identity. You
Can’t dent it.
Wounding words wake a wall
Of rejection. This final act
The snowflake starting
The avalanche
Driving down
Destroying
The bond between us as brothers. Puppeteer,
You’ve tangled yourself in your strings,
You can control me
No more.
Slightly shake of my head, small shrug of my shoulders,
I ignore your vitriol, reject your venom.
Your physical blows hardened me
Like iron shaped
Beneath a
Hammer.
Your words wash over me now
Like a storm tide revealing
Hidden truths
Beneath the
Surface.
Exhaling, breathing fully for the first time.
Renewal, each breath bringing in
Life to my being.
I decide who
I am.
My own being, no one’s whipping boy. No one’s
Punching bag, no man’s spittoon. How small
You look now, body consumed by your
Bilious hatred that you hoped to push
Into me, to infect me,
To destroy me.
Unmake me.
You failed.
Because
I am.