Fear Is For The Living

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9HKZwUI2rh

I wonder, sometimes, if it will always define me –

If I will always be the twin

With no twin.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1qTUAaEVf9

I wonder, sometimes, if a little of him

Is inside me, just waiting,

Just waiting for me to find it.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIHWssSvhG

I wonder, sometimes, if he hadn’t died,

Would I have?

I wonder, sometimes,

Would it be better that way?

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2YhiP2P4p5

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9tf1Wvrdl1

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFp8RN0YW5r

I shouldn’t have gone out that day.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCTcM3Hxg1c

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlvNwCZEIl0

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5K86VLMUdX

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLat6U5jtAZ

“Luca, you have to go to school.”

School.

A place where I feel his absence

So clearly, so greatly.

“I’m sick, Mama, don’t make me go.”

“Please, Mama, don’t make me go-“

And she doesn’t.

She never does.

She knows

That he should be here to fake-sick with me,

Sitting on our beds, groaning and giggling and fibbing half-heartedly.

We were never able to convince her, not quite –

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqWZn1WVafM

It is so easy now,

Now that there’s nothing to stay home for.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqTlf1j0Jho

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6PwvWw54uM

Mama leaves to go to the shop,

“I’ll be ten minutes, top, okay?”,

And the house falls to silence

But the silence hurts, hurts so much, so I

Turn up music on my phone until surely, surely

The hurt of the quiet goes away, goes away

But it never does, never does, and quiet of his absence is

Unbearable

Tense

Attacking me

Clawing my brain through my ears

So I wear his headphones with the volume on max.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhfMbWrwRgD

Mama says it’ll make me go deaf.

I don’t care.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDBIg6Gvp5e

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYicOLKmoHc

I want to go back

I do

Please.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeWPSYQSknF

My Mama needs me.

My brother needs me.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrOCeYxSb7T

I have homework to do.

Well, schoolwork, but the teachers ‘understand’

Why I can’t be there, on account of my grief,

They ‘understand’ when I turn work in late

With no explanation,

They ‘understand’. I want to ask if they’ve ever lost a brother

Because I know that they haven’t

So how could they possibly understand?

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJht91V9w20

They give me sad smiles and nods when I see them in the supermarket.

They don’t say anything because I’m wearing my music

And they assume I cannot hear them, but I can.

I hear their pity in their half-smiles

In their sad smiles

In their nods of acknowledgement

In their prolonged looks with my Mama, over my head.

They do not understand.

Nobody does.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkXSHR0cWsF

I am dead.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbeTRR2HVz3

I can’t go back.

I like the quiet, of it, of death.

It surrounds you, it moves with you,

It comforts you.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFeHB86liVe

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaJHRkxS5Fp

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL8rSz2kyyP

I am an only child

And have been for a month.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgPbutT8BwB

I don’t like the quiet.

I don’t like the quiet so I cry to fill it.

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsQ1UieUC8i

I wander around the empty house

Everywhere I see is empty of him.

His photo is on the mantlepiece but his eyes are empty,

Mine is beside his

but he isn't beside me, not really, it's lying,

It isn't true! My heart hurts, hurts, hurts,

It is a void

Of his absence

That becomes a black hole and I smash his picture and I smash mine

And there’s glass on the floor and I pick it up and

I throw it at the walls and I

Scream

And I scream and I scream

And Mama comes home and she says,

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwWm5ytbxtN

“Scream, Luca, Scream.

Anger is for the living.

Fear Is For The Living

Your brother fears no more.”

309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEEw5ZFMHMH

“Scream, Luca, Scream.”

She gently pulls off his headphones from around my head.

I don't need my music when I make my own, when I cry.

She wraps her arms around me.

She kisses my forehead.

"It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be afraid.

Fear Is For The Living, Luca,

So fear the moment when you don’t anymore.”

ns3.144.251.23da2

Fear Is For The Living

REGISTER

LOGIN

Interface Language:

Story Language: