letter .1

Wake all the neighbors by apollo rosa

The fading pink sky escaping over the tracks from the back door window of the train to the sound of Sufjan Stevens

makes me think of him.

I feel almost happy, mostly relieved—

that I know I’m not as numb as I feel.

Maybe it’s the recent madness, or maybe it’s the come-down of the crescendo of almost two months spent living at a non-stop running pace.

It’s all plausible, and a combo of post pain-and-fear shock is most probably it

But as I looked upon my brother today in the corner seat sunlight on Baldwin street

Say he was a loser

Only the Monday afternoon half-carafe of white wine loosened my numb face

To betray blank

And let my eyes fill with tears

Though none fell

How has he trained his own numbness to such a T?

And how and when will he crack?

And when would I if

if

if

if we were to become

the destinies we’re doomed to?

What were we to do?

If we believed this—

Someone else’s song sings through me, always,

But I didn’t write those words

When I open my mouth

Nothing comes out

Throat dry

Jaw clenching

Teeth grinding

Like he did in his sleep

I remember

I always pretend,

Or try not to complain,

Either way it’s all the same:

I don’t sleep well.

I toss and I turn a thousand times a night through torrid symbolic dreams that are so vivid when I wake at the smallest disturbance

—like morning

Or his teeth grinding

Bad blinds or an unshakeable thoughtfeeling

‘Cause in that half-born state,

Aren’t they just the same?

Like dreams make mythologies of buried feelings, hidden knowing

That may often or never surface as formed thought or decipherable feeling in waking

Hollering with all my might at the world

Is all I can think to do

To fight the numbness

—I won’t resign myself

(no, not yet, I’m not ready!

A friend distracted by her own self-doubt-and-destruction told me last night

When did my brother decide to? I wonder

What is that inescapable recurrent feeling

Of “but I didn’t decide!”

And why am I more afraid of this than anything else?

Because we did, we always do.

How do people fall asleep walking,

Living in a glass box of their own making

Whose ceiling feels uncomfortably low

Though you can see out of it,

It feels like you’re crushed, gasping for air, no less.

If we’re all so enlightened, so disillusioned, so jaded—

And we know we made it ourselves,

of course we did,

who else could have?

Then why can’t I get out?

How is it that it seems everyone helped pull me in here, but no one wants to help pull me out? My brother’s sad eyes say this.

When I know that no one but me closes that door—

And no one can fling it back open in disgust and disbelief

Only me,

Only me

Only him,

Only him

dead silence

Now I know

Why loneliness universally haunts

But what will the walls of his empty perfect suburban townhouse whisper

When the family he built and suffered daily numbness to bring to the world

Is gone

What language but silence will the walls speak?

A silence so strong,

Only a hollow holler could make it go away

Wake all the neighbors.