A contract with truth.
I promised you that much.
No false affirmations of "Oh, you look so good today."

"Death is absolutely safe," I assure.
"What could be more difficult than being born?"
You prepare to return to the womb.
Your frail, thin body involuntarily curls to a fetal position whenever you close your eyes.
Your mind is eaten away from the sickness inside.
One moment you are a three year old, who can't remember wheres he lives
or names of friends surrounding you.
Then in an instant of lucidity, you remind me of details of a vacation when we locked
the keys in the trunk in the middle of nowhere.

In order to accustom themselves to death, Tibetan monks go to the graveyards to
observe the bloated bodies being devoured by the vultures.
As I am now, soon you shall be," the corpses chant back.
I watch as the medicine rots your internal organs: poison or remedy?
I help you walk the length of the hall; you are out of breath with only a few steps.
Others in your ward have died.
They are a harsh mirror, reflecting your own eternal condition.

Grace in grief - I don't even think I cried when you left us.
How could I weep?
After months of struggle, your pain was over.

Now the seconds turned to minutes, which turned to hours and days;
the months gathered dust.
Yet still I sensed you nearby.
I search my environment for you, I need more than a celluloid ghost in a frame on my desk.
One day I thought I saw you on the opposite street corner.
A smile crossed my face, and I opened my mouth to say hello, realizing at that moment that it couldn't be you.
I see you, in the profile of the boy in front of me at the checkout line,
in the pages of a magazine, staring back at me
or I feel your head on my shoulder at night.

If we only could have talked one more time.
I didn't mean to close my heart to you, but my sorrow made me numb.
Everytime I looked at you I wondered if I should end your ordeal:
Smother you with your pillow,
or give you some pills.

They told me you were calm and you died in your sleep.
We were all denied the privledge of being with you at the end.
I'm sorry I wasn't there to hold your hand.
Little Brother, tell me what was it like?
Was it a warm, brilliant white light?
Or is heaven, as you imagined, like the Roxy on a Saturday night?

I think I feel you with me and I want to pull you near.
But howly strongly can you hold something that isn't really there?