I looked up at my big brother
as recruiters knocked on the door
and my mother began wailing
because we all knew
where he'd be taken,
the invasion had just begun,
seventeen writing essays
about Emily Dickinson
to shooting a machine gun
atop a vehicle made for war
before his eighteenth birthday.
and I didn't know him too well
we were born over a decade apart,
but I knew his favorite movie
was Unbreakable,
and he played Diablo 2
until the sun rose,
listened to Linkin Park
while working out
in the garage.
My sister held my hand
through the worst years,
only a few years older,
but she was bigger
and stronger than most adults,
devoured Stephen King
when she should've been
reading Goosebumps,
we'd sneak into theaters
and watch the sophisticated,
paint our nails ivory,
throw water balloons
at boyfriends
and girlfriends
of random strangers.
Pretending to be greasers
from The Outsiders,
combing our hair,
chewing gum
leaning against cars
that weren't ours,
becoming candles
that lit the dark
in each other’s eyes.
ours, becoming candles that lit the dark in each other’s eyes.
Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka Japan. You can see his work in the Argyle Literary Magazine, Berlin Literary Review, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded, Heimat Review, York Literary Review, The Mersey Review, Prairie Home Mag, among many others. He would later graduate from Cal State Long Beach.
