I was first-born,

My brother was not.

I strove to be perfect,

And, oh, how we fought.

Where he was reckless,

I was quite prudent.

He was always in trouble,

Yet I an A student.

I am five years his senior,

He’s just like our father.

They’re two peas in a pod,

I don’t even bother.

Differing views, so extreme,

Stopped us talking long ago.

We never agreed on anything,

When last we spoke, I do not know.

My family is quite,

The epitome of dysfunction.

So I go my own way,

Without any compunction.

I have several friends,

Who are closer than kin.

But I’m truly a loner,

Fueled from within.

Siblings are very unique individuals. Sometimes they are paired with brothers or sisters, or other times they're packs of the two genders bundled under the same roof. In most cases they care and look out for one and the other, while in other cases they fight and scorn against one another until the end. One house on 999 Milton Avenue, a pair of siblings, two sisters, Rosemary and Regan Gravely, have turned their loyal love into a hateful contest of tug-of-war.

"It's mine!" The oldest sister roared as she pulled on one an arm of a monster plushy.

"No, it's mine!" The youngest sister fought back, pulling on the plushy's other arm.

"It was in my room!" Rosemary tugged. "I told you not to touch or play with my stuff."

"You don't even play with it." Regan argued. "It just sits there on the window!"

"Let go, dumb blonde!" 

"You let go, bubble butt!"

The pair pulled back and forth, stretching out the little toy's soft fabric limbs. Their fighting stopped when a flash fire sprouted beside them then extinguished away, leaving a tall man in a red suit standing in their wake. His scarlet eyes blazed with bright, burning rage. 

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP ALREADY?!?" Their stepfather, Lu, roared. "We're trying to watch the game downstairs."

"This is your fault, you know." Rosie scolded her only sister. "You're always touching me stuff."

"I wish I had a better big sister than you!" Regan cursed.

"I wish I never had a sister at all!" Rosie hurtfully cursed back.

A sound of thunder rattled Rosie's room and a bright flash of light briefly blinded the Gravely sisters. Suddenly a pair of giant, electrified wings made of pure light and energy divided the two sisters apart, forcing them to back up a couple steps. The wings vanished and there stood a tall man in a dark, leather jacket between them.

"Alright, Buffy and Dawn, let's cool off." Their uncle, Mike, ordered. "Come on, you both know you don't mean what you said."

"He's right," His devilish brother added. "Trust us, you don't want to spend a millennium old heartache wishing things could have been different."

Mike knelt down next to the gothic older sister and counselled her. "Hey, I know what it's like. I know how sisters can be a major pain. You tell them to don't do something, but they do it anyway. I get that. But we're the oldest and regardless of their actions we gotta look out for them. They look up to us, so it's our job to set an example."

The devil also made the same gesture to the younger sister. "And it's not easy being the youngest. You just want to have what they have. But you can't just take it from them, you gotta ask for it first. Then one day they pass their possessions to you because they care about you. Regardless how many times you two fight, you still love each other in the end, right?"

Both the Gravely sisters took in the wise words of the celestial beings to heart and mind. They both turned to each other, their eyes full of regret. 

"I'm sorry." Rosie said first. A small, sheepish smile formed on her lips.

"Me too." Her sister mimicked. The two then walked up to each and gave each a large, heartfelt hug.

"Come on," Rosemary suggested. "Let's pick up Slinky and play with him outside."

"Yeah!" Regan cheered and the two ran downstairs. The angelic brother and his demonic brother high-fived each other and they slowly followed downstairs. They returned to the couch and watched the football game. 

"You did well, brother." Mike complimented. 

"As did you," Lu returned the favor. "Did those two remind you of anyone?"

"Yeah. You and Gab. Two of you fought a lot."

"Not as much as you and Raph. I remember how he'd challenge you to wrestling matches that he could never win, and he'd always throw a fit afterward."

"Yeah, never had the same kind of bonding we had. We never fought about anything, with the exception of that one fight."

"Ahem to that, bro."

The two brothers fist-pumped each and resumed viewing the game. Lu reached out and grabbed the top of a beer bottle off the coffee table. Mike aggressively grabbed the bottom half of the bottle. The duo proceeded to yank the beer back and forth.

"Hey!" Mike shouted. "That's my beer."

"No, it's mine." Lu retorted.

"It was on my side of the table."

"It's from my fridge, paid for with my money!"

"It's dark beer! You don't even like the taste of dark beer!"

"I can handle any alcoholic beverage that put in my liver!"

"Don't make me smite your cindered ass!"

"Bring it, choir boy!"

The two brothers grabbed one another and wrestled on the carpet floor. Siblings come in all shapes and sizes. But no matter how different they are, they all act the same and share the same amount of love.

One red block sat atop blue and one yellow beside them. There was violent then blue again, then orange atop blue. The construct towered with miniature possibility, a conduit, a channel, a limb enabling a broadcast of influence. Two pairs of hands tiny and pale with fingers like caterpillars but bald and smooth.

The basement walls of stone seeped earth agate as the void. The twins turned their heads of similar hue to the window above. They gazed beyond window to the night behind it, through denser velvet of darker shade. Sedan on highway hurtling through black glinting the grin of the crescent moon. The vehicle colourless yet black then white in curious tandem, not flashing, never flashing, but shifting like water, like conversation. The sky was archaic, the moon most tilted.

And the sedan hurtled still. The driver, his hands gripping the steering wheel at a certain time, was not drowsy but deadened by the monotony of the landscape. The crooked trees which painted the horizon like Stygian stencils, the forest thick, impenetrable, a world apart, within, without.

The driver felt the passenger to his right stir and whimper. He glanced over at her and, as if in response, she languidly opened her eyes and blinked. She blinked again. Yawned. Extended her limbs as far as possible and stretched them. The radio skittered in and out of frequency, out of phase, back again, and the wailing strains of steel guitars resumed.

"It was the strangest dream," she said softly to no one in particular.

"Oh?"

She nodded blearily. "You were in it."

He said nothing, continued to watch the licorice night.

"You were standing in the kitchen at home, it was midday." She rubbed her eyes. "It was like I was watching but you never acknowledged my presence."

He adjusted the temperature of the air conditioning.

"The doorbell sounds, you set down your coffee mug and go to the door. I follow you but cannot discern who it is because you're blocking the doorway. You return to the kitchen with a moderately sized cardboard box and set it on the counter."

He glances at her then just out of habit and her eyes are on him, fully awake. He smiles anxiously but she does not return it. Her fingertips massage her neck but this does not seem to ease her.

"I'm glad you woke me," she confessed.

"I didn't."

She frowned at this and looked away, sat straighter in her seat. She flicked the radio off with fingers dipped in scarlet polish and observed the darkness around them. The death of steel guitars reverberated in memory for a time until that too faded.

"So what was in the box?" he inquired at last.

She regarded him with confusion. "I don't know. You never opened it."

He smirked and looked at her with amusement. "A bit anticlimactic wouldn't you say?"

She returned a smile but the smile was forced. "You received a call on your mobile and moved to the patio outside. It was suddenly night and the neighborhood was alight with multi-coloured lights like it was Christmas but it wasn't Christmas. You end your phone call without saying goodbye and return to the kitchen but there is a presence in the room and only I can sense it. You wander the rooms of the house in darkness oblivious to the shadows and finally you turn to me..."

Neither of them saw it. The blur of brownish white, the explosion of hooves, the silent creature of taut muscle and modest coat. The sedan buckled, compressed, spewed glass and fur, metal and crimson, and halted in quiet. The vacuum of sound to mark an anomaly perhaps, a considerate pause in the machinery of consequence. Nothing moved but the sedan's engine sputtered.

The conclusion a palette of bleeding colours, mixed and entwined, fate and chance and foreign will alike. Red atop blue and yellow beside. Violent then blue, then orange atop blue. The sedan was fire, the moon was grinning, tree stenciled sky, and two pairs of eyes cloaked by feathery night.

Lil man, if there's a nerve of mine you haven't gotten on, I don't know where it is, but I beg you to leave it alone. It's the only thing keeping me sane and, consequentially, you alive.

Bertis, you are unfair, obnoxious, overbearing, unreasonable, sophomoric and you take time out of your day to make yourself the sharpest, most incessant, longest-lingering, pain in my ass.

Being the baby, you were raised above the law. That, I can't blame you for, but my high blood pressure and anger issues? A massive "ROBERT" in red blotchy letters is scrawled all over that shit. 

At least twice a day, I blissfully daydream of a wayward meteor landing in our house and killing either you or me, instantly, and that is because of you.

But dammit, if I don't love you, Bertis. If I don't say it enough, know this, Robert: I love you.

In every eye roll and insult I send your way, you'll find my love. In every punch, kick, slap, and scratch, you'll find my love. In every deliberately soggy kiss you tried to wipe off your skin, you'll find my love.

I could burn, roast, and flame you every day of your life, but every angel in God's heaven couldn't help anyone foolish enough to send a dirty word your way.

I'll kick you black and blue, Bertis. I'll punch you til' your nose bleeds every red blood cell in your body, but I'll scalp the first person to harm a hair on your nappy head.

I might not say it enough, Robert, or as I call you, by your ugly nickname, "Bertis", but if you look closely enough, you'll find my love for you in everything I do.

I would like to note that I am not insane. At least, not completely…

“Why would you do that?" I was probably thirteen, my sister only seven, but that little brat had just put my collector's'edition Barbie in the bathtub, and I was thoroughly pissed and of course overly-dramatic and currently screaming.

She sat in the dingy water, naked and smiling at me with her layered shark teeth (that I could never remind her of enough because I was a horribly mean human being), making Barbie sing with delight at having a swim. She seemed unaffected by my tantrum, probably due to the frequency at which they occurred.

"I didnʼt wanna get mine wet," she said, "it ruins her hair."

"Well, why did you put mine in there? Why do you always ruin my stuff?" This question was asked on a regular basis, and it was never once answered to my expectation.

"I dunno. You don't'play with yours. You just left her in the box." She wasn't'taking this monumental event seriously, and my skin was starting to crawl.

"Ugh! I hate you," I growled menacingly at her and stomped through the door. Most people seem to feel these words hold a lot of weight, but we both used them on a fairly regular basis.

Honestly, I don't'even know why I was angry. I didn't'like Barbies at all. I was already smoking Marlboro Reds and knew how to roll a decent joint. But we spent a lot of time together alone, and I probably just needed a reason to feel violated. The only purpose for keeping that stupid doll was that my absent, alcoholic father bought it for me, and I thought it would be best to preserve it. 

I was fuming and ready for attack. I began sifting through the sea of toys and clothes and trash and fleas that was our bedroom floor, irately searching for her identical Barbie doll. It only took a few minutes to find it, as she played with her pretty often, so she was close to the surface. She was decked out in a pink floral sun dress and my sister had bound her plastic blonde hair into tiny little pigtails.

Now, before we go on any further, you should know my sister had tons of Barbies, most of which I had given to her due to not being the "Barbie type." I had stockpiled quite a collection regardless of the fact that I had zero interest in them whatsoever. Secondly, most of them were naked and dirty, half with hair that had been chopped to the scalp and their hands chewed off.

This Barbie, however, was well cared for by my sister, probably for the same reason mine stayed in the box.

I took that poor doll into the kitchen, my sister completely oblivious to my vengeance, and lit the gas flame on the front burner of our stove. Because I had recently become a self-proclaimed pyromaniac, this seemed to be the best course of action. I seized a knife (from an ever-mounting sink of dirty dishes) and held it over the flame until it began scorching black, then I used the hot blade to melt patterned lines into Barbieʼs dainty little legs.

From ankles to pelvis, I made sure to scar her, determined to leave her deformed and hideous.

I wasnʼt entirely satisfied with this, so I decided it would be best to remove her feet altogether. Out came the bone scissors and off with her toes. Her hair went as well, and then it occurred to me that her hands were unnecessary at this point in her life, so I stuck those in the fire to achieve disgusting little stubs.

When I was finished removing all of Barbie's'appendages, I placed her behind my back and proceeded back to the tub so I could torment her with her new and improved mutilated doll.

To my surprise, she was just sitting there staring at the wall.

"Hey." She looked remorseful. Uh-oh. 

With tears streaming down her cheeks, "I'm'sorry for putting her in the water. If you want, you can have mine and I'll keep this one since I ruined her."

My heart sunk as I realized what a complete dickhead I was. This would shred her into shrapnel, and here she was offering me repentance.

Feeling all my douchey glory, I replied like a typical teenager, "It's'okay. You can keep them both."

I backed away from the bathroom and for some unknown reason, I chose to open the door to the water-heater closet and chunk the doll inside. I couldn't'help but find a corner to cry in. Not only was I cruel, but a sadistic weirdo. I had shame wash over me profoundly, along with anxiety over the state of my mental health.

My sister was vehemently upset for a few days that she couldn't'find her Sparkle Eye Barbie. She wanted to make the pair sisters, like us, and she swore she left the doll next to her bed.

I couldn't'tell her what I'd'done, but I tried to make her feel better.  I made her Barbie clothes from pantyhose, popsicle-stick furniture, and a cute little home from cardboard boxes. We styled their hair and staged Jerry Springer shows. 

For the record, I'm'not a psychopath. We were left to our own devices way too often, and I think I had a lot of resentment bottled up towards my sister for being her caretaker at such a young age. I quickly grew out of my pyromania, pot-head stage, and I've actually turned into a fairly reasonable adult.

I did tell her about the Barbie when we were adults. She told me she really thought I didn't'want it because I just left her in her original packaging. "I was only seven! I had no idea what collector's'items were. Jeez, you're a sick bitch, aren't'you?”

And she laughed. Thank god.

"He ate too much butter, and that's how he died," I said with a tear in my eye, my whole class looking at me, their mouths wide open. Then I put in my cassette tape, Hound Dog blared from my portable radio, and I swiveled my hips while busting out the lyrics.

That was my first biographical presentation in elementary school and it landed me in the principal's office. "Too much butter?! I'll have you know, Pippa's gone and scared half the third grade class! Their parents are calling me every day and none of them will eat butter," Mrs. Pulaski growled at my parents. From the corner of my eye, I saw my mother stifle a giggle, the veins in my father's neck bulging as he contained his anger. They glanced at one another and I saw my father mouth the words "Charlie." 

It wasn't really his fault that I believed every single word that came out of his mouth. Throughout elementary school, I spouted off all the things he told me to my classmates and teachers: "the skull mom uses every Halloween is from our sister who died before I was born"; "beanie babies are made out from salvaged roadkill"; "don't whistle in front of your Furby or it'll steal your soul"; "if you melt dog poo in the microwave, it'll turn into chocolate."

And that's how I always landed in the principal's office, thanking my brother along the way. They took away his Nintendo, and sent Charlie to his room whenever I was sent to detention for fibbing. So he spent middle school in his room and I spent elementary school in Mrs. Pulaski's office. I wonder if they ever realized that was my sweet revenge. 

Brother bear …don'tʼbe scared by the cliché

A reflection I see…

..even before I discovered the word brother.

Two seeds of the same tree

Rooted on the same ground

Of soils nurtured by the wisdom of the elders

We both listened to the same sound

Of the songs from the leaves, who were our shelter

Time and age brought the distance

The sense of owning made it worse

What is yours, what is mine

The whole concept was absurd

Now that we look back to the time when we were seeds

Time has a different look

Wise enough to realize we were written on the same book

Stood on the same rock, because we shared the same faith

So I give thanks to the Most High

For being the mountain

Where the bears took shelter

For being the forest of wisdom

That surrounded the small seeds.

Growing up has always been difficult but even then, someone's got to have it worse than the rest of the others and for those people, that someone was me.

I didn't have a lot of money growing up, or rather, my parents didn't, and no amount of love changes the economic hardships of the working-class. Now I know that makes me sound like an ingrate, but I'm not blaming my parents for being poor. I'm not; I'm just trying to provide some context as to what it was like being me back then. Back then, I was a kid and Jesus Christ, kids are fucking stupid.

I grew up in the 90's, which meant that my favorite pastime in the world was to sit in a dark room and slowly ruin my eyesight with the help of my 24" Panasonic cathode ray tube television. It was the era of Ninja Turtles, Sailor Moon, and Biker Mice from Mars, but I didn't know what any of that shit was because my family didn't have basic cable - our television programs consisted of whatever blurry, static-laced, government-subsidized broadcasts our rabbit-ear antennas could grab at low-band radio frequencies.

That's why I didn't watch a lot of T.V. What I did do was play a metric shit-tonne of video games, or one thousand assloads for those of you that don't understand the metric system.

My console of choice was the SNES, a beautiful, grey, Japanese joy box that my uncle had given my brother and me last Christmas and the only three games we had to play were Super Mario World, Street Fighter II: World Warrior, and Donkey Kong Country. We played every one of those games to death, but D.K. was by far our favorite and we would spend countless hours jumping around, getting blasted out of barrels, and grabbing banana's by the hundreds to get a new life. Of course, we didn't actually get a new life, but I wasn't cynical enough to realize that when I was nine. That came later.

My brother Mikey was eight years my senior. He was woopsie baby #1 and I was the sequel. As I said, we didn't have much money, and that meant that our folks weren't around, most of the time. For every day after school from 3-8, it was my brother Mikey who came to pick me up from the red-bricked monstrosity they called a school and I would go with him until we got home and then we'd play some video games.

I was always Player 2. That was the rule - no matter what game, Mikey was Player 1 and I was Player 2. That meant he was Mario and I was Luigi, that he was Ken and I was Ryu, and that he was D.K. while I was Diddy. Always. And that was okay because he was my brother and this was his brotherly prerogative.

I'm not sure how long this went on, but when I think back to my childhood, this is what I remember. I also remember when things changed.

Like most couples, my folks had good and bad days. Most days were good, but near the end of the month, the bad days always came. On those days, there'd be screaming and yelling, but I didn't think too much about it because they always told me everything was fine when I asked them about it and I believed them because kids are stupid. My parents lived in the adult world, doing adult things and I was a kid, but Mikey wasn't, and I didn't realize that until later.

One day, Mikey got a job.

He got a job at Electro-Paradise, the local arcade that people used to go to play video games. I didn't of course, because I didn't have any quarters, but people, white folks did, and they went often. And while they were there, they'd get pizza, fries, and Cokes because they had money and Coke won the Cola Wars. And Mikey would be there, serving them their pizza, and at the end of the month, he'd help my folks out with things like rent because that's the kind of person Mikey was.

So I started going home alone but I wasn't lonely because D.K. was still there and Mikey would still play with me when he got back, though it seemed like he was coming home later every day. He also looked tired. So one day, I asked him what was wrong, but he was an adult now, so he smiled and he told me "Nuthin'" and I believed him because I was a kid. Then, he asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I said I wanted Mortal Kombat 3 and he laughed and said "Okay" and then we finished the bonus level. God I was just so stupid.

About a month after that in December, Mikey didn't come home. He just...never came home. My parents and I didn't find out why until two days later, after Christmas, when the police found him resting inside a dumpster. He had been shot twice in the back of the head and left wrapped in a garbage bag for somebody else to unwrap. And that's how my brother died.

The police never found out who did it. They did, however, speculate that Mickey probably saw something he shouldn't have and got shot. This was the 90's remember, and crack cocaine was flooding the streets. A lot of bodies, especially black ones, were hitting the ground and Electro-Paradise was a money laundering front for those filthy, money-grubbing NIGGERS who didn't give a SHIT that my brother didn't deserve to die.

We buried him a week later with the assistance of the state.

Later that night, when I went through Mikey's stuff, I found a copy of Mortal Kombat 3 tucked away underneath his mattress.

I’m sorry Mikey; you deserved so much better.

What I wouldn't give to be your Player 2 just one more time.

“I lost count of the promises I’ve broken for you.” Kaden stared at me, his electric blue eyes holding more self-righteous storm in them than usual. I scowled in response.

“Don’t act like you didn’t benefit from those. I just need this one favor, okay? Besides if we get caught, just do what you normally do, blame the problem child.” I crossed my arms, feeling my auburn ponytail swing and brush my shoulder. We were in the garden, where we normally fought, the place where Mom and Dad never went. As far as I can remember, our parents hadn’t come out here since we were little, as if they suddenly remembered the beautiful rosebushes and daffodils grew out of dirt, worms, and sweat.

Kaden shook his head again and ran a hand through his blond spikes. “Tatum, what I’ve done for you before is nothing like this.” I chewed on my lip, tasting the strawberry lip balm I rubbed on an hour ago. He was right. He’s lied to our parents and covered for me, despite his promise to keep an eye on me. He’s broken up with his girlfriend for my defense, though he promised he’d love her forever. But this was completely different. He swore to do no harm and here I was, barely keeping from shaking, pleading to help me with murder.

“He deserves it.” I countered, feeling bile in my throat at the thought. “Who knows how many lives he’s taken and gotten away with? And what he did to Meadow…”

Even Kaden, the aspiring lawyer, didn’t have a reply for that. Meadow, our cousin and best friend who made up the year between Kaden and I, suffered under the monster’s hands. He took away her maidenhood and now she may never marry. It was the town’s laws and though I was never one for matrimony, I knew it was Meadow’s dream to have a family someday.

Kaden squared his jaw and I saw the muscles tighten around his cheeks. This was a good sign. I held my breath, waiting. He was going to say yes. When it came to his little sister, he always gave in.

“It’s about to rain,” he finally said. I exhaled and looked at the clouds. They were clustering above, ready for a storm. When I lowered my gaze, Kaden was already heading back inside. My shoulders sunk. I guess I had finally found his limits. After a moment, I followed him. After all, it was going to rain.

Mom jostled me awake violently the next morning. I jumped in bed to her clammy hands, hitting my head on the wall in the process. “Ow.” I rubbed the back of my head, feeling the matt of knots the night’s sleep had formed. When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw both of my parents at my feet, they’re eyes in the fieriest rage I had ever seen them. And for the first time, I didn’t know what I had done to make them so angry.

“What’s going on?” My words stumbled over each other.

“Where’s your brother?” Mom demanded.

“Kaden? I don’t…”

“He’s missing,” her voice cracked. “And he wouldn’t do this on his own.”

“What?” Dad was placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, rubbing back and forth. I was instantly on my feet, coming towards them, but they wouldn’t let me engage in a hug. Dad gave me a glace that told me to stay back. I felt my hands shaking by my side.

“What’s going on?” I asked again, barely able to form a word.

Dad held up a wrinkled newspaper clipping, obviously having been crumpled in his hand. ‘Local Boy Killed’ the headline read and I recognized the picture of the cocky college freshman that had plagued our town and raped my cousin.

There was a knot in my stomach, twisting and twisting upon itself. My mouth went dry. I knew. “You think it was…Kaden?”

Mom burst in to tears. Dad shrugged. “Normally, no. But he went missing as soon as the paper came out.”

My eyes darted to the window but any tracks he would have left had been washed away by the rain. Mom and Dad were right but I would never admit it. Especially knowing it was my fault. How he saved me from getting involved. I crossed my arms over my chest. It seems I had a brother who was limitless, who would do anything for blood.