Poetry, Adeline Foster
We both have runner’s legs, long and slender, made to take us far, and the urge to go inherited like Zeus did his rage.
We walked early, always talked. You the spectacle of giggles and schemes against the backdrop of my boring little Miss perfection shtick.
I was the first to know, I was the first to go. I fled inward and that took me pretty far from my body, from my brother from me.
You were the first to show, far from patient zero but the rupture of your descend the first symptom of their constant discontent. Outwards you ran into arms and people’s charms, a body only, with one urge to bring forgetfulness onto the remains of your scattered mind.
I took my books, old dresses, long legs to a town and saw: there is one cage to run from, it isn’t me, and I don’t think you see it was never you, little brother I promise it was never you.
Little brother, I hope.
Little brother this time,
let us make a start. They shot the gun,
it was them that gave us legs to run
but let us not make this a “from”
but a “towards”
and let us not choose destinations too far from another.
Little brother, I hope.