Bill

Your tiny infant bones are

Buried in the middle of Austin.

Somewhere. I don’t know where.

Our father took me there once

To show me your gravestone.

It only said “Son.”

It took them over twenty-two years

To mark your final sleeping place.

They used my college money

To buy the stone I begged for you.

Mother laughed when she told me

Your tombstone was my graduation gift.

And,

I hated you for dying

And leaving me alone with them.

You were the first;

Born three years, five months,

And six days before me.

Breech birth complications

Strangled you to death with

The cord that kept you

Alive for nine months.

Mother said you were stillborn

But you held on for three long days.

They never named you.

They never baptized you.

They never honored your tiny life.

And,

I hated you for dying and

Leaving me alone with them.

Mother said they were going

To name you Henry William III

After our father.

You were to be called Bill,

But they didn’t want to waste the name

On a dead baby.

When they might have another son

To be third in line.

Instead, I came along and was

Named after our grandmother.

They despised me and resented

That I needed them to care for me.

And,

I hated you for dying,

And leaving me alone with them.

I fantasized that we would be

Best friends and buddies.

Dreaming you would be my protector,

My cherished, obnoxious, older brother.

My knight in shining honor.

I imagined we would help each other

Through the shared of nightmare of them.

We would nurse each other’s bruises

And shame from the neglect

Of not being wanted or loved.

Instead, you abandoned me

Before you even knew me.

And,

I hated you for dying

And leaving me alone with them.

You escaped.

And I survived.

I love you.