A Warrior in Brotherhood

Upon his own sword, my last warrior falls again and again.

A child’s innocence,

stolen away by a want of more.

For he knew too young,

his stomachs roar.

From his fathers seed he was fed the lie of not enough too much.

It stuffed his intestines and stuck in his throat,

forever struggling to be lurched

as if his very lungs and heart are that of a beast he fears he can’t control.

In one instance,

the beast let out and found its claws sunk to me,

only to have the human return to fit in its place before I would truly see his eyes once more.

Back then,

the pools of his cool eyes had swum in fear and pain,

a shock that strained;

it was clear to see that it was his hand that had lain upon his little sisters throat.

It took a moment more for me to see,

and try to hear past the crunching I heard from within my ears,

but the shock was true,

and he wrenched himself free,

dropping me to the ground.

And he ran.

Trying to save me from himself,

I would later come to pray.

And I was left,

with tender ears that hurt a small amount forever more.

I felt my eyes freeze a little then,

windows that were forever searching for his,

only ever yearning to know my prayer would be made true.

A year or two later,

he was standing at my door in the early hours of the night.

“I love you. I’m sorry.”

His eyes were bloodshot.

He smelled of things I didn’t want to know,

and I got the sense that it wouldn’t be the first, but again.

I couldn’t see into his eyes,

they were clouded,

the steel of his hazel was gone,

his windows were left with only the haze.

I remember being shocked and not knowing how to answer.

All the damage he had done,

the fires that nearly took our home,

the caretakers he scared away.

The things he had stolen,

the friends he had pushed away,

and the hatred.

He’d existed in an anger that feasted as it festered.

All the while he couldn’t look at me.

And the first moment he may have led him clear was here.

His shoulders were slumped and arms held his stomach as if it were wrenching.

He seemed so broken inside.

The next morning I awoke,

to my fathers rough shakes.

I looked at him, and his silvering eyes,

with narrowed pupils and a tightly set jaw,

and saw before he spoke what he meant to say.

“He took off.”

And he left it at that.

I know he didn’t want me to see

That quiver along his shoulders

as he held his emotions at bay.

He was forever battling with his heart that way.

Its nearly as if his heart is what gave his life away,

a sacrifice he felt he had to pay,

when he took us in.

My curse from that day is the expansion of my question.

But for why and what to the all of it?

At two years older than me,

he was rounding his sixteenth year.

But he was once just a child too.

His eyes would often be found in a panic,

and he would reach,

but no one and nothing would take his hand.

The pain was too starving and sudden,

it wasn’t you.

There are others who turn away for fear of being burnt

by the heat of blood that gushed from your shattered heart.

So instead,

his hands found more in another place.

He swallows his woes in droves,

in drink and smoke,

only reflecting at him the thing he hates the most,

hiding what he truly is.

For it was with him that numbers bloomed,

the chess board crooned,

and humor swooned.

His haunted nights brought him closer and closer,

a warrior doomed.