Skeletons

I found him on the floor

Looked like a puddle of chocolate sauce

I turned my brother over and…

That’s not chocolate sauce

His shirt was all red

I could not tell

From where he had bled

All I knew was

“My brother is dead.”

Now some years later, I’m grown

I have family and kids of my own

But there are more than just shirts and ties in my closet…

Hanging on a hook, next to my lucky belt,

Is his skeleton

Since that day, I have had it

In my closet

In my car on the way to work

Even in the shower while I scrub myself down

His corpse rests in a cemetery hundreds of miles away with a very nice headstone.

And yet his skeleton is something I cannot be far enough away from

I did not kill him

But I knew who did

My brother’s dead body was the result of him finding our father touching our baby sister

My brother drew his prized switchblade and cut

Our father grabbed it…and thrust the blade to my brother’s gut

And now, because I saw it all and said nothing…

My brother’s skeleton in my closet serves as a gentle, daily reminder of my silence

R.I.P.