Ian.
D
O
W
N
the concrete
stairs
I tell mom I was jump-roping.
Really, I just wanted to die.
Throwing myself to the ground,
best form of suicide
for an eight year old.
Great way to start out a poem, right?
This one isn’t about me though.
Fasten
your
seatbelts.
I come home,
he’s sitting on my bed.
He's waiting for me.
A smile
across his face
“Hi” I return
3 years old,
he's never spoken.
But we get each other.
He hugs me.
The silence
loud
with compassion.
Something
a 3 year old
can comprehend.
Fasten
your
seatbelts.
I’m thirteen.
Mom and Dad,
whispering
talking
yellling
screaming,
fighting.
Stereotypical poetry.
“Abusive parents
yada yada
blah blah blah.”
They aren’t the point.
He’s eight,
but so much stronger.
He has aspergers,
but is so underestimated.
“It’s okay,
they always stop.”
He’s impervious
to their toxicity
Fasten
your
seatbelts.
I’m sixteen
I’m sitting on a hill.
Summer is here.
Scars revealed
in the sunlight.
This isn’t what I’m trying to say.
I see him,
eleven,
crying,
quiet.
I know the kids at school
I know what they say
“Retard.”
“Stupid.”
“Fatass.”
But he pretends he doesn’t hear
Just like with Mom and Dad
He's impervious
to their toxicity.
I ask him to talk
but
just as always
he only speaks
when he has something to say.
“Its okay,
they always stop.”
Fasten
your
seatbelts.
I’m seventeen.
Driving around
the same route as always.
Looking for my last ounce
of courage.
Finding none.
I think about him.
I think about
how horrible
humans are
how horrible
they treat him
how horrible
it is
to see him
take it
with all his might.
How horrible I am
to sit in my car
giving up my life
when he’s struggling
beneath the tires.
Unfastened
my
seatbelt.
This time
it didn’t stop.
CRASH
I want to die.
I drive my car
into a pole.
But that’s not what this poem is about.
It’s about him.
How brave he is
no matter how disadvantaged.
At thirteen
he is
the smartest
the kindest
the strongest
person I know.
How when I was in the hospital afterward
he pretended he was
impervious to my toxicity
and still hugged me anyway
just like when we were three and eight
Its about how
he is the reason
I will always
Fasten
my
seatbelt.