3:22 am

i sit outside at 3 am, watch the ubers swish by,

just flashes of blue light. we used to walk

these streets together. i can almost picture

you down there, arm slung around my shoulder.

sometimes i’m afraid i’ll forget what it means

to have been your brother — to forget

what it was like to walk with you.

on weeks like this i wonder how you’d have survived,

if you could have.

.

you’d have managed without me, made new friends, lived dreams.

but i can’t picture how you’d have swallowed this grief.

i don’t know if you’d be asleep at 3 am or wide awake,

maybe this is just what brothers do without a brother.

.

is it weird that i feel like death suited me more than it suited you?

you didn’t look right in a casket. you looked

like the boy that should be standing beside it,

shaking stranger’s hands.

.

you were always brighter than me, a burning

thing, drunk and dumb and slipping off rooftops,

chugging beers that fell like shooting stars

from condo balconies.

.

of course you’d miss me and you’d spiral

but maybe you’d get more sleep.