v. letters i should never write: blood brother

(proof that devastation can cause two very different outcomes)

i wish i didn’t have to write to you.
i wish i didn’t have to write about you.
but mostly—
i wish you just…liked me.
not loved.
not protected.
not stood up for.
just... liked.

i get it.
i was annoying.
i existed too loudly.
i embarrassed you.
i wanted to be around you, around your friends.
and maybe you thought it was just little sister shit.
but for me?
it was survival.
it was the only way i knew how to say don’t leave me here alone.
it was a tether.
a flare.
a prayer.

and it’s not like i didn’t notice.
that one time—
when i needed you the most—
you turned your back on me.
i was still so young.
but i clocked it.
the disgust.
the recoil.
the way you pulled away like the shame was contagious.

and it cut so deep because i never knew why.
i still don’t.

i don’t know what i ever got that you didn’t.
i don’t know what made me so contemptible.
i don’t know why your power always came with distance.
i don’t know why you pretend you weren’t the chosen one.

you were.
even if the crown was bloody.
even if it came with fists and rage and rooms you had to survive.
you were seen.
you were coached.
you were somebody’s pride.

and me?
i stayed local.
shared lockers and hand-me-downs.
rode the bus past the house you disappeared from.
you were sent somewhere with towers and ivy.
somewhere far from where we came from.
somewhere they paid for you to be saved.

and now?
you mock any softness shown to me.
call it irresponsible.
call it unearned.
like i didn’t grow up
digging through the wreckage you walked away from.
like i wasn’t surviving
without the luxury of distance.

and i pitied you for that, sometimes.
because the violence made you cruel.
but it didn’t make you invisible.

i was the ghost in the house.
the background noise.
the extra mouth.
the girl who kept showing up—
even though no one was home.

and still—
i never hated you for it.
but from your pedestal,
you still spit on me.

you saw me after he left.
and all you could say was—
why did you pick him?
why did you have a baby?
why would he stay?

you didn’t ask me about the pictures;
you didn’t ask me what happened—
didn’t ask for the hospital report
when he punched me so many times,
i thought she was dead inside of me;
the police report;
the bruises.
cuts.
blood.

and i didn’t ask.
not then.
not ever.
i never asked you for anything.
not help.
not mercy.
not kindness.
and the times i almost did?
you locked the door before i reached the handle.

and still—
i drove to visit.
sent the gifts.
sent the cards.
still remembered your birthdays.
still tried to be a part of your family.
still wanted to be the girl you didn’t mock behind the scenes.

you don’t dislike me.
you just don’t see me.
and if you did—
you’d probably laugh.
probably say i’m being dramatic.
probably roll your eyes
and go back to your neat little life
where i’m a chaotic warning you don’t believe in.

and still—after all this—
i wish you liked me.
not because it would fix anything.
not because i think i deserve it.
but because it would mean i wasn’t crazy for trying.

because if you liked me—
even a little—
then maybe i wasn’t just screaming into an empty house.
maybe i wasn’t as forgettable as you made me feel.
maybe the girl i was didn’t die in that silence—
she just got tired of waiting for anyone to look back.

and maybe that’s what hurts most.
not the rejection.
not the judgment.
not even the disgust.

but the knowing—
deep in my marrow—
that i wasn’t a reflection of who you didn’t want to become—
i was the evidence of what you left behind to save yourself.