Daniel Brothers

Is your time still rolling forward?  In that over under world Or is time now going backwards?  Are you a year younger now?  Now that you’ve went and gone away, The way of Peter Pan or Benjamin button And all of us one day. Do your birthdays, six feet under bring you closer to the start?  Or do your death days just remind us that you’re slowly falling apart. I cant say now if you’re 26, or 25, or 24?  It pains me to think how I don't know if I care anymore. Not that I do not miss you, And weep for you in my bed Not that those hard set thoughts Don’t live inside my head It just no longer truly matters if you’re 24 or 25 The numbers feel inconsequential when you’re no longer alive.  

 There is a painting on my wall That is a little crooked Its been like that for a while.  But every time I look at it,  or should I say every time I’ve looked... What is the opposite of a smile?  A frown is too short term, and also too long I’m deflecting, the painting is crooked. It has been for a long time.  Change it, Ill say, I need a hammer I’ll say, It kind of works like it is I’ll say. But it still stays crooked, it still stays off kilter Not sure if it doesn’t feel right to straighten it, Or if I’m happy enough to let it be.  There is a wall behind my painting And its looking a little crooked

 I used to be a dreamer  How bleak, its not so bad.  I still dream sometimes.  But i used to be a dreamer, My days spent in the sun My back on the ground My body under treees My eyes in the clouds When i was a dreamer  I dreamt of bright futures Of everything I’d buy with a million dollars Of everything I’d do if i could stop time Of what it would be like to fly Through pear shaped clouds  That steal my gaze from school work Or work, work.  Steal me from all the things I dreamed  I was doing.  It’s not sad that i am no longer a dreamer. Because i live the life i dreamed of,  In a city where the trains roll by my window With thousands of interesting people on them People i could one day meet I could one day get to know I could one day fall in love  The dreams are still in me.  The dreamer is not.  Because as I lie under this tree With my body in the dirt And I look up at a cloudless sky Every dream a dreamer could dream up ...

 The ground is solid on my boots, Laced solidly for the long walk. My belt, one hole tighter for the weight I’ve lost. My back, one knot tighter for the weight I’ve gained My heart, no lighter for the peace I’ve found. I set out into unfamiliar territory,  Leaving my peace in pieces behind me  To find my truth the long way round.

  Can you twist your pain into a tapestry?  Take hard truths and form beauty?  Take the cuts through your veins and the  Scars on your skin and form them into art?  I can not help but wonder how.  Is it that the hurt that i feel is not enough?  That the pulse that wavers is too weak?  The shadows not deep enough  to paint a picture on the floor in what light that remains.  Is it the web or the blood that is too thin?  How can you take your pain and make it right?  Or at least put it to some use Other than destroying that which is left of me.  How can I loosen the bonds enough to get a pen down To get the words out? It’s not that I want to feel this pain. Its not that I am seeking more torment  in order to create something beautiful  where only death lies.  It’s that I would like these scars to have some use, And I’d like my pain to ease something other than  My force of will.  That tether that keep...

 You gave me a world, in the most literal sense Something that's present now that you are past tense It came to me blank to draw what I imagined but now it feels hollow drawn of thoughts what has been mountains and forests that we never can visit a lost empty world on my dresser will sit. 

 My mind has been sleeping as my body has worked Moving Crates with my hands as dark thoughts may have lurked By no means forgotten and by no other means lost My thoughts have been sleeping and I wonder the cost. 

A tree grows with a rotten branch by a lake with a calming breeze; And though it holds this great dead weight it stands with relative ease. Decaying wood by new spring buds  seems like a detriment, why not remove the scar of death why cling to what's been spent?  Perhaps it waits for a wind most strong to prune with a powerful gust, the limb which then, will fall to the ground where moss will grow like rust.  But till that day, the tree will grow and shade it's scar with leaves. A dead branch, or a sentiment?  Such is the way of trees.

by Daniel Brothers There is a lean to at the end of my favorite hike, And it’s certainly not the only lean-to, nor my only favorite hike, But I know that it’s there.  And no matter how long I’m away from the wilderness, From the rapids rushing over rocks, mixing the scent of pine With dark brown algae and earth,  I know that it’s still there.  Simple, as most lean to’s are, great old trees and rocks turned into a safe spot to rest, and hide from the flies. I know what it’s like to rest there I can visit it in my brain, though I am usually far away.  The distance almost makes it easier to recall,  in a strange way.  So distant, it becomes a constant, stationary in my mind, and sweeter for it. Because I left the flies behind, and took the pine and the earth, And the rocks are there too. What would I do if one day I walked down the path And found an empty clearing. No note, no smoke. Just an empty clearing where rapids rush and breed flies In hard rocky pools....

AUGUST 7, 2018 / ROBBY BROTHERS If I fail to see where I’m going. If I fail to see what I’m writing. If I fail to see who I am. I hope you can forgive me.   If I stumble. If I make unfulfilled promises. If I leave unachieved goals scattered throughout my life. I hope you can understand, it is not meant as disrespect, it is not a lack of passion.   If I am silent. If I am sullen. If I am unproductive. I hope you can find it in yourself to love me anyway.   Because if I fail to see myself through all my fear and insecurity, as I dig my way out through all of my dreams and other dead things, I hope I can find your hand, waiting there to pull.   If I fail to see.

AUGUST 24, 2018  /  ROBBY BROTHERS I prefer to be trusting. I freely give some trust to all people, and more to those I let close. Only when that trust is broken do I stop to think if it’s deserved. I pick up the broken pieces of trust like shards of glass, the edges cutting into my palm and slivers working their way into my heart. I fashion the parts back into a whole, and if I see no ill intent, I once again give the one who broke it my trust. Cracked. Fragile. But mendable. Only when my heart is so full of slivers that my blood is choked and I cannot fit the broken pieces together will I leave them on the floor.

AUGUST 7, 2018  /  ROBBY BROTHERS I left a steady plane for worlds of uncertainty. I miss the sureness of my feet, but god… …what wonders there are to see.

I was looking through a notebook of mine the other day, it was the book which I had been using to plan my brother's funeral. The front half at least, I have a bad habit of grabbing the nearest sheet of paper and writing in it regardless of the other contents. This book happened to also have a short play, some random grocery notes, and a page of text that I could not recall writing. Sometimes I write in the middle of the night, barely awake, because of some thought I needed to get out of my head. Sometimes I dream of my brother and I wish his voice was as clear as it is in my head. I haven't had the two nighttime habits meet I don't think, not until I stumbled upon this passage in my book. Have you ever written something that you never thought before? Words that aren't your own, thoughts projected to someone else, or just the inner workings of the psyche broken free by tiredness. If you have, maybe they look like this. I wonder Author uncertain.  I wonder what...