Our house was on a hill
in California it was dry and arid and the roads were dirt
and thin and scratchy
the trees were green
that was the only color we saw.
and everything was bone
and white
not my bones
but my brother’s.
my brother knew these parts well, better than my father ever did
and he walked them. Like a shadow
neither man, nor woman but he was always a man to me.
my father called him a fag
my mother drank her wine
and my grandmother was schizophrenic and called him her granddaughter
but my brother saw things beyond the trees
and he chased them on all four
paws clawing into the dirt like fingernails scrape into skin
it was that easy
he only slept through the day. he never went to school
awake through the night, eyes wide as a screech owl
this wasn’t depression
he never showed us what it was
the voices creeped into him
by nightfall he grew shorter and
breathing stalked him
creeping into him, his roots tangled at his ankles, pulling him into the world he knew
before he came to us
so our hands never could not cover him
the dirt always did
and the only love he knew was the green
when I asked him what we could do to help
his mountain lion eyes flashed up at me
“I am lost.
You are lost.
We are all so lost.”
and he laughed and the dry, thin mountain air swallowed him into
the greenest green California ever gave us.
