Your Brother Did It

[rowens]

You say he had the driest eyes you ever saw?
Though his cheeks and areas around his eyes were red.

People have a manner of crying in many ways,
ways that never have to show.

It was a drawn out thing that turned his youth.
He aestheticized violence to deal with anger and pain,
and took comfort in the popular biographies of serial killers.
It all became ugly again the moment anyone was nice.

He kept the lights out because they hurt his eyes,
preferred being apart because anybody gets annoyed
when others get too close.

You wouldn't say he was morbid or dark;
but what he did was real,
and reality is more disturbing than dark.

There are ways of being ugly even parents don't see.
Girls nor teachers.

That's not what they make video games for,
but it helps;
as there is nothing laconic or dry or slow
in the way a person turns into another person
between mind and screen.

You say he stabbed you three times in the kneecap?
After you offered him ten dollars to borrow
when he said he was hungry.

Your mother said: "He got up from the table,
grabbed a knife out of the sink,
and stabbed Ryan's leg three times.
Then he sat down and asked me to call 911."

He never played a game where anyone used a knife
in quite that manner;
he wanted to be noticed for what he did alone.