why am i?

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brother, brilliant and dead, one year ahead. mold him an imaginary gravestone with clay & dreams & dirty, hungry fingers. glaze dripping on the earth, oozing, seeping in. not dormant. but. everything is frozen. pipes & fish hibernating under papery leaves falling from skeleton trees. what if i float away like a balloon animal. a cracker animal, crunched under your feet. i drown in opaque light. don’t filter me. so why am i? filtering me. why am i? sitting here in my pj’s. why am i? just a skeleton of me. you wouldn’t approve. and he doesn’t approve anyway. me. come back to me. i need to breathe. instead i hibernate under television glare & paper excuses crumpled in my hair, floating, not seeping in. brother, why am i? here.
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(C) Poetry, MJ Calitz, 2011. Photograph, MJ Calitz, 2009, edit, 2011.