The Decline of Me

It was hard, so hard, being the child of monsters. I didn't want to hate you anymore. Not for what they had done to you at the start—they deserved that—but because then you were doing those things right along with them.

***

Masks are amazing things. You put one on, and if you wear it just so, you might just forget you're wearing it.

**

Expectations. We all have them. They chase us down, hounds with deadly teeth. We let them lead us in circles like sheep to slaughter when maybe we can fight back. The ones that follow you around without ever seeming to run out? Yeah, those can take over your whole life.

**

People will always be what makes me feel most at home

***

"When are you finally going to get around to making a map." His laugh was low. "You've been trying to do one for years now."

I sigh. Pencils haven't left boxes since I graduated. He knows that. He knows the hourglass broke last year. Dishes can never wait.

It's an effort not to turn toward him as the door creaks closed. If I say the same damn thing as every night he doesn't hear anything new and doesn't even bother getting up. It takes too long anyway. There won't be a bed tonight. Not much room for the both of us, not with this stupid bed between us.

"The world doesn't revolve around you or your needs, lady."

No one knows that more than I.

***

Frozen hands wash dishes in scalding water. I don't know how old my brother is. I used to wonder about time, where it led everyone. It never crossed the same path twice no matter how many turns I walked through—no matter how close each of us tried to stick to our neighbors. No one got there before us or after, unless by accident or death, something we would rather not deal with at home or in life in general.

***

My mother made dinner tonight and the whole night I wanted someone else to sit at my table and eat it, and when the plate came around my chair, all I heard was him talking over the crunching, but he said nothing when it mattered. "We shouldn't eat so late," or even, "You don't have an appetite lately," and when she left the room, there were noises.

***

He's asleep when I come to the foot of our bed tonight. And I wonder when he started growing up—not how, I guess; just how to think of someone older than you having a place at your side at the end of every night until it matters to them not.

Shadows and cold. All of it. When did the icicles come creeping in? No one saw them.

There were a few months when the winter turned so hot. We ran out and found ice. He cut it off a branch. He cut himself in the dark. I was supposed to take care of it. Always, I'm supposed to take care of it.

***

Biting the inside of my lip hurts more, but I don't look away as he lies and pretends all day—at dinner, on the sofa reading stories with us—that it wasn't really happening in that last moment. He doesn't lie so gently with me now. He won't look in my eyes again, and sometimes—like tonight—it breaks me when that knife of words finds his flesh instead.

There were nights my dad thought I didn't need him and I was happy when Mom did. When I couldn't remember her and when her shadow loomed everywhere. Looming larger the darker the day, and I had to find the strength not to call out to her.

***

There are times it hurts, when no breath comes between a scream—even after he falls back, breathing—even before the first one dies on his tongue or his ears have turned black—he's silent.

Golden rays of light through the window.