My Stolen Brother [Pt.2]

I told him visit me in my dreams to tell me stuff; the kid always kept his promises. I kept wondering, “who, how, and why?”

That morning he had asked me for a ride…I was still slightly upset at all the trouble he had caused my parents and the way they kept forgiving him. So I was still mad at him for some reason. He asked me for a ride to work; that meant I had to get up two hours before I started, meaning I lost sleep without being foretold. I DON’T GIVE UP MY SLEEP… sleep is like a prized thing to me. Anywho I got my stuff and was grumbling through the whole thing. When I came to meet him at the door he was on the phone, I reached for the doorknob and his hand held the door shut. “Oh alright man, yeah I’ma see you here, aight.” Hangs up. “Hey it’s cool, I got a ride.” I look at him in disbelief of hearing what I just heard…he woke me up for THIS?!?!?!?!?? “What the fuck!!!”, I exploded, “I can’t fucking believe you…” and I stormed away. I was mad and upset and everything in between. I went back into my room fuming and slammed my door.

That late afternoon is when I got the call that he had been shot as he was walking to the store. That morning was the last morning I saw him and THAT is the last conversation I had with him. I can never forget this, EVER.

As I questioned the universe time and time again he came to visit…in a dream.

It was so bright and so…so… REAL. We sat in the dining room of our house and I asked him if he was okay. He was wearing his usual crisp white shirt and baggy navy blue jeans with his white air forces. He answered, “Im fine.” I continued, “Do you know who did this? Tell me who it was.” He looked at me with confusion in his eyes and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion,”I really don’t know, I wish I did, but even I don’t know who it was.” “Did it hurt?” The confusion vanishes and he looks at me in disbelief, “no shit! I got shot, that shit hurts. I called out to mom hella times even though I knew it wouldn’t help.” A thought occurs through my mind when he says, “I gotta go.” and I plead, “wait,wait I have to ask you something.” He says, “I can’t” and goes into the door frame and a huge bright light engulfs him. I’m standing alone in my living room, ” I just wanted to ask about heaven.”

I wake-up and I can’t believe it, the realness of it, I’m amazed. He doesn’t know the reasons, but he is in peace where he is. I here am not in peace…because to this day I wanted to say something. On that May 20, 2016 morning after I left fuming you said, “Sorry.” Well kid, I’m sorry too.

Undocupain

When people immigrate they leave a life and family behind. They leave a piece of them or their foundation. I migrated here when I was 3 and I migrated with my main foundation, my mother. My mother though had her foundation of her father, but left in our home country her mother, sisters and brothers. We started out new in the USA and that’s what we wanted a new beginning, a fresh start. So we began I went to school and she did too and worked at night. Then one day she met my stepfather who moved us to a new city and we got a new place, I made my transition fast and loved our new life as a happy family. Soon my parents gave me a brother and though we were seven years apart we bonded like siblings usually do. Little did I know my mother was yearning for her family and wanted to return. It did hurt that I would leave all I knew in the US, but I also wanted to see my family again. One day my parents packed boxes and suitcases and we picked up our lives and set out to put our lives somewhere else on a map.

We relocated I got signed up for school and started again. I hated that beginning, my parents struggled to find work. My stepdad being from another country that was not my mother’s native country made it difficult for him to start. My mother tried to adjust but her wage was not enough to keep our family afloat. We began to sink, we began to swim towards our shore. The shore was the US, we paddled as fast as we could. We made it with emotional scars that run deep in our skin. The ocean to get back was treacherous and hurt us deeply. But we made it back to the place I’ve forever called home.

I learned that I was undocumented in my teen years and that grounded me in a way that can’t be explained. Imagine telling someone their life has not been all they thought and that they won’t be able to do exactly everything they’ve wanted. That’s what I felt and carried with me through my teen years. That was also when I heard that people like me could not go to college. I gave-up then, all my parents efforts could mean less to the angsty undocumented teen I was. I stopped, my grades dropped, and I was let go from a pristine program that I was allowed in based on grades. I was sent to my regular public school and I let my grades slip more. In my senior year I met a guy I loved and I cut classes since I didn’t care about life after high school. This led to me staying and extra semester in highschool and that guy didn’t even stay with me. Graduate I did after my mom told me if our struggle was really gonna be that meaningless. While finished my highschool, my mom found a college that accepted undocumented students. The only thing was… I could’ve been accepted into any college I chose. NOBODY knew that AB540 existed and AB540 would’ve got me into any college had my grades been as flawless as they began.

My Stolen Brother

I had a brother once and he was the golden boy of the family.

Him and I were together and at night we would laugh. We would talk about what we would do when we got older. Though we were seven years apart we had meaningful talks. They always took place at night. I would defend him from my parents at times, as he grew that began to stop.

We also moved from out last apartment to a house, that night we had our own rooms. He called me and said, “I can’t sleep…it feels weird not to sleep with you in the room.” “You’re such a weenie,” I responded, “you can’t sleep cause you’re scared.” “I can’t.” He responded. “Fine, I’ll stay on the phone til we fall asleep yeah?” “Yeah, aight”. I don’t remember much else of that night. I suppose we drifted off to sleep. Those nights would later turn to lonely nights for me. Restless nights for my mom and dad. I would then shout at him about his choices. Why, why are you doing this? It’s hurting our mom can’t you see that? Stop doing it… you’re gonna hurt us all. He would smile that crooked smile, “don’t worry about it.” I would worry, I would always worry. Would he come back how would my mother feel if he was gone forever. Bad choice after bad choice landed him in Juvenile detention. He became a dad after at the ripe age of 16. He went to jail at least once or twice after his daughter’s birth.

My brother came out the last time determined to change his life. Someone somewhere had different plans for him. I don’t know who this person was, to this day I don’t know who they are. On May 20 some people took my brother’s life. He had been with us for 11 days…we celebrated his 19th year on earth and about 1 or 2 days after he was gone. Now 11 days seem like I didn’t enjoy enough. I should’ve done, more? I should’ve talked more to him? I don’t know and all these questions bother me.

To this day I know my brother laid on the floor for 15 minutes with no medical attention. He laid there with 7 shots on his body, with no company from his family. I don’t know who or what he saw. All I have is about 3 different accounts of what happened. 1} He was laying there a way you would not like to remember him by. (Police Department) 2} When they (police department) came they wanted to drape a white blanket over him and he shot his arm up and said “Help me please, I don’t wanna die.” and he yelled out mami over and over again 3} “He asked me to help him stand up and I said no, just stay down, the police are coming and you’ll be okay. He kept insisting to get him up, he wanted to walk to the hospital.”

I don’t know which one to believe, I don’t know which one I like better. I would like that truth and a officer telling me what I would and would not like does not help me find my peace with how he left. I can’t make peace.

In one of our meaningful night time chats: “When I die are you gonna come and haunt me?” I looked at him and said, “no, are you?” “No, but how will I be able to tell you stuff?” “well,” I answered, “you can visit me in my dreams and then maybe it won’t be so scary.”

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“I swear if you talk to her I will walk away”,

and here I stand stupidly saying, “hi”

to the only woman you’ve ever loved.

To the woman who’s place I was just holding in your heart.

Melancholy Remembrance

(Image from favim.com)

Today is a sunny day in my half of the world. In my little ghetto ridden town that I call home. Today I’ve thought over and over again trying to find something to write about. Well I have one recurring thought. I guess I’ve been thinking alot about a whole year and a half that I lived with someone that I thought was special to me, he was my world. I wish that I could forget, that everything would go away. Or at least that the memories were happy, but they are neither. The times are all glum and the memories are all painful. I can’t find one happy moment and when I do it ends horribly. I wish therefore that it was all gone.

Have you ever seen the movie The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind(one of the longest titles ever), but in it I find that if it was possible to go to some doctor to erase your thought it would make love alot easier! But it’s not like this so we can’t be Jim Carrey and have our memories erased about Kate Winslet. I think that the solution is just to move on, so towing my little heart out of the hole it’s stuck in I’m trying to move on.

But on some occasions I just sit and cry, when Im alone that’s what I do I cry, because it releases the stress. On other occasions these sunny days I sleep away the trouble I have and though this is bad cause my day is wasted I sleep.

In my dreams I am happy. I am successful, but I am alone. I have a wonderful apartment, furnished with vintage decor. I sit in my vintage sofa and watch movies, “The Notebook”, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, ” 50/50″. I eat ice cream and I enjoy every last bit of me time. In my dreams I sleep and wake to beautiful sun rises, I get in my car and go to work. To a job I love. I get there and park in the usual spot, then I open the door to the smell of crayons, paper, and the clay that’s drying from the last project. The kindergarten classroom of my dreams! I am the teacher I longed to be. I teach throughout the day and then I go home to my great apartment. I find that everyday in my dream world I am alone. Successful but alone. I wonder if this is a premonition and I fear it. But when I wake-up from this dream I wake-up alone. Am I living the fear that I was once shaken by? I need to figure out what to do, because time slips from us all and I can’t retrace any of this. Maybe I have to be alone and arrive to my apartment alone.

My perfect man has become a person I don’t know. He’s just come to a standstill and even if I pull him am I really helping? I am just apart from hurting him I’m hurting me and I’m growing tired…and, and , and I feel so sick I might throw up or breakdown

 

Don’t Forget the Summer

Don’t forget that in summer we got married. I never forget that you couldn’t dance and that as everyone looked on you didn’t dance with me. Don’t forget that you told me we’d move in together. I won’t forget that the night of our wedding I asked when you would bring everything and you answered that you never intended on moving in with me. Don’t forget you gave me the chance to get out and party. I won’t forget that on that night I met someone I won’t soon forget. I can’t forget the attention, I can’t forget the little spark of romance, I can’t forget that everything I wanted I’ve found. I can’t forget that now…now that I’m tied down I’ve met this person.

This someone has given me things that I didn’t even know happened anymore. Above all I’m given the attention I crave. I’m given support and validation. I’m not even expected to handle things by myself. Here I sat thinking that chivalry was dead and that keeping our friends away from each other was better. I’ve met all his friends and I’ve not in four years been able to hang out with yours. You cannot stand mine, cause they’re either too boring or too loud. Here I am now, I’m lost and finding all your flaws that I have justified for the last 4 years. I can justify your flaws no longer. I trapped myself under you for too long and now I can do it no longer. Watch as I try to break something that I should’ve never built. As you reach your high I will go out and look at the blue sky; the sky that seems brighter and more clear than before. I know what I have to do, I just have to figure if I have the heart left to do it.

Always

When he says forever do you trust?

If he hurt you when he said “Always.” last time do I keep believing?

But how do you leave me and tell your ex lover that you left me? How do you tell her you took me back and how do you portray my vulnerability to her? How do you paint me to be so weak? I can’t handle this…I can’t handle you. I lay next to you sometimes and watch how serene you look, inside me my stomache turns. I can’t look to long at you because I know that she knows. I know that at any moment you could turn to her. I know that she has you in her palms. Yet I want to trust you but can’t. I can’t, I can’t trust anyone.

This is what abuse makes me think. For two years I looked foolish and now even if he means what he says my abuse won’t let me think. My abuse tells me he’s a liar. I can’t help but think he writes to her and she plays the victim and he comforts her. I lay in bed at night and wonder if I made the right choice. Was I right in running back? I don’t know and I want to scream in his face and tell him I know. That I know he portrayed me as weak and that I am that girl’s prey. She can start tearing at my carcass cause he left it out for the lioness to feed.

But what bothers me is that I know and as he lays on my chest…I play back the scene that happened that night I took him back, what I did. I look at the corner of the room….and there it is,can’t you see it? It’s an elephant in the room! That reminder of what I did. Maybe he didn’t do what I did, but he intended to do it. I just took action. I guess in a way we’re equal and as I write this I am thankful. I am thankful I can vent.

Maybe I am vulnerable to that one girl, but you are all so more vulnerable. My sweet innocent love…you don’t know that I played the game a whole lot better. You didn’t know but in this little game called love I already beat you. You came back to me, I didn’t look for you; you looked for me. Which in turn leads me to believe you know what you lost and that girl will never have you. She’ll love you for those minutes and in that time you’ll love her. She also won’t “love” you because you don’t have the money to afford her. I know ,she told you so herself didn’t she? Well I do and sweetheart you can’t keep her happy, unless it’s in bed. Maybe that’s what you want, but you know what you’ll lose cause I’ll say it one more time…YOU CAME BACK!

I’ll pretend I don’t know what’s going on because this helps me keep my sanity. Just know that I’m here and when I said , “Always”, I did mean it.

Backtrack

*Rewind*

I can go back a full year and remember everyday vividly! I can rewind so far in my mind to the point that I still see people that I knew when I was 7-now. I can hear voices and remember conversations. I can see the scars and remember how they got there. But I just wanna write about 2012, I wanna write about how that year changed me and has left me in a place so wonderful that I never imagined! In 2012 I did two things, I ended a relationship that had turned abusive and in turn ran into the arms of another abuser. The difference was minimal, physical vs. verbal abuse. But in that relationship of verbal abuse, I would remember the insults and everyday feel more and more weak. I started losing interest and though I supported my partner, he never gave me support; in any way. I would write essays that were at university level and he would get glorified for something he didn’t have the capacity to do. Why did I let this go on? I still ask myself that question, how was I so blind? I was shunned when he was around girls, we weren’t in a relationship; when I was around guys we were totally a couple. Cause the thing for him was always having an upper hand at controlling me. The thing for me were that he was there when I needed support. But I always messed up.

When I was in highschool there was always one guy that caught my attention and kept it throughout highschool. I would later add him on facebook. I would wish him happy birthday and never hear anything, just get the lame notification that he liked my post. But he had liked the other 20 posts on his timeline anyway. But in 2012 once I realized that I was good enough for anyone and I was too much for the guy that was next to me…I went out to clubs. I met various guys and this kept me intrigued. So one day I got ready for a club and I liked how I looked so I took a picture and posted it to facebook. That picture would get me the most likes in the history of me posting pictures. That picture would also get a message from my highschool fantasy guy. I answered so foolishly, I told him that he had messaged the wrong person because it seemed unlikely that he really wanted to talk to me. Funny enough we kept the conversation going for about a month, until he told me if I wanted to go out with him. I agreed. I had fun that night I didn’t get home til really late. I had a lang make-out session and I got home fairly late. Nothing happened that night because he had not asked me whether I wanted to be his girlfriend. I would keep talking to him for weeks and seeing him. I got enough courage one day and I just told him to be my boyfriend. He agreed. For the first time I was loved, no abuse, no fights. I was finally living a true romance. For a whole year and a half i lived on a cloud. I did come down from that cloud of couple of times, but I forgave and would climb back up. He was great in so many ways. But what I can’t backtrack to now is where all that went. Why did it end? Why did it end so abruptly and the way it did?

Little Brother Where Art Thou?

From Google

 

While the above image is from an anime. I wish my brother and I were still that young and that I could change everything that he’s gone through. That I could save him.

I live in a family of five. My father,mother,little brother, and little sister. We’ve lived in a town known as a “ghetto” for 13 years. My brother since he was in pre-k loved art. He would color and draw his name in big colorful letters. As he grew he started loving and appreciating the urban art that surrounded him. By the time he was in fourth grade he was fluent in different fonts and could go through 80 page notebooks in one day by filling them with different letters with different names. Art became his passion, he would do origami with me and paint pictures with me. While I was drawing my dark anime characters, he would draw odd monsters that devoured letters, or letters within a city setting. Everything revolved around letters. The following years he became even further entranced with the urban art and wanted to do some art for himself. I bought him a canvas and a mini spray can. He created a piece of art. Then came his “blackbook”. “Blackbooks” as I understood from carrying one around was to pass it from one artist to another til it came back to you. When this happened the book was filled with art pieces from various underground and rising artist.

I lugged around my brother’s “blackbook” and my highschool which had various underground artist that knew upcoming artist that my brother had seen throughout town. Well not to brag but that book came back more than half full with different “tags” about two weeks later. I took it home to a very delighted pre-teen. So he always kept it, looked, and drew inspiration from the art he found inside.

But I never knew or expected this to impact me or that these events would carry a bigger consequence.

My brother was always a goofball in and outside of class. But he was ALWAYS respectful. He was never rude to any teacher or authority figure,but he never paid much attention to his teachers and never did school work he just drew. He drew around the paper everywhere that had blank space.

Eventually he found a girlfriend and gave me a beautiful niece. But he also got sent away to a reformatory school while his baby was incubated. I was sad for four months, my boyfriend was the best support I had. My family reality became blurred and distorted. When he got out we were all happy…yet not too much. My brother had changed. In the first days he was quiet,reserved, respectful. Gradually, he began to change. Then it all hit.

Reality brought all of us down. Then it began my brother got louder and more volatile. He began doing things like a crazy kid, he began lashing out and became unpredictable. As months went by of me urging my parents to get him help. He became worse then it happened he began to get violent. Slowly these became more frequent. Now we can’t hold him back. This little boy became something uncontrollable. Everytime he is approached he is approached with fear if not complete terror. But it’s strange he’s sweet, nice, and not violent sometimes. But now I have to go talk to him about an issue and I’m wishing that I really didn’t have to.

Walking Blindly

Tomorrow is our four month anniversary and it feels like it could be longer. I don’t know why I feel like this. Waking up next to you is such a thrill, eating with you, hearing you laugh, watching shows, and falling asleep in your arms have all become my biggest habits. What happens when it ends? Will it hurt like always cause now I feel like you’ve become my biggest addiction. These are the best four months with you babe. I can’t believe you pulled me outta the baddest relationships and that you’ve made my smile brighten up all over again. I don’t know where we’re going or how we’re gonna end up; but I feel safe and happy with you and at this moment in my life…THIS IS ALL I NEED.