Brother, Still

I write because the silence will not break.
The phone is mute; the years drift out to sea.
What word remains? A shadow in its wake—
A brother lost, though bound in blood to me.

We shared a house of storm and brittle glass,
No father’s hand to hold, no quiet guide.
You bore the weight of years I could not pass,
And I, the younger, watched you from the side.

Your children grew—how fierce I loved them all.
Their laughter filled the gaps our youth had torn.
But now a hush: no letter, call, or stall,
As if our tether snapped the day they mourned.

Your son struck down; your daughter turned away.
You shoulder grief as though you stand alone.
Yet brother, none are meant to bear that way,
And I would walk beside you if you’d own.

My girls grow tall, and life is full and fleet.
The seasons turn; the cosmos takes its due.
Yet sharper than a blade, this void we meet—
A silence deep as stars that spurn the blue.

So here I write, and maybe wind will send
These words across whatever walls you raise.
And if not now—then brother, in the end,
When smoke returns to sky, remember grace.