The first time I became your big sister was not when you were born

It was sometime in between when we spent christmas in a motel looking for mom

And this summer when I tried to teach you multiplications since you didn’t go to school enough

And You taught me how to eat  Ramen Noodles without boiled water

You taught me how to make two jugs of kool-aid with one packet

 

You told me that you trust me

Telling me about our sick mother

Like I didn’t already know

But you live with her

 

I feel wrong living away from columbus

With the rusted storm drains full of every cigarette bud she flicked onto

This is the  only type of bud she would ever waste

Addicted to anything addictive

I felt wrong seeing how thick tears, drop like you were metal and she rained on you

Rusted like storm drains

I wish I could hold you when the wind shakes you

But I don't know how to love like that

Little brother You teach us how to love like that

Little brother how’d you learn to love like that

Cause your hair is fragile from ripped pigments of tight ponytails

She left dents in your head pulling at it

To leave room for the vessels of your blood

To soak up all the memories

 

Like she was looking to make money with little brothers existance with him

You get food stamps and benefits  

What 6 year old questions their existence?

 

Catching the cold of bipolar disorder and a habit of panic attacks

You were getting sick like her

Skinny like her

But I look like her

You said you look for her in me

Tell me if I sound like her

 

I became the only wind that came through the doors of every apartment she ever rented with little brother in them

The only source of fresh oxygen  little brother breathed when playing video games and drawn curtains

Little brother became addicted to the scent of city poems from big sister

But he's with her

 

And I feel guilt as she paints  her words black again, see mama’s a poet too

But she's stained with wall paint

She thinks this clears up schizophrenic breaks

she smokes gray

 

Like the walls of little brothers home

We are treated like black heard

She is red slaughterer

Slashing little brother's existence with melatonin and food stamps  

How she owns draining pools of your young spirit

Your clothes are damp from a night that you won't remember after first reality break,

I ask you if you remember

Like vacuums around your ears you pretend to not hear me

 

I said it's okay I know you still have night terrors  

You grip tight

hiding from fires that are drowning you

Ocean flames of “God please save me”

Mumbling words of scriptures foreign to the rest of us

You're more religious than all of us

 

You taught us how to love

But you Looks up to big sisters

With these fragile glass pupils

Reflects big brothers

Dilated red kool-aid eyes

Looks up to big sister

Like I'm ma cooking chicken ramen noodles without boiled water

To my little brother who always wondered why I called him buddy not brother

I’m sorry it took so long  to become your big sister