Spitebone
You always landed perfect, like gravity loved you
like the world bent itself into cushions any time you fell
I grew up kissing concrete, chewing gravel
spitting teeth while everyone said you carried yourself so well
You got “driven, ” I got “angry, ” you got “focused
” I got “cold, ” Same hunger burning in our ribs
but yours turned praise while mine turned mold.
Family dinners were shrines to you
every story circling back to how you shone
They tossed scraps of “he tries” in my direction like charity while they poured champagne on your luck
I watched you grow into the golden child
every trophy placed just so
Started to fantasize about shoving you into traffic
not even for murder, just to crack your ego.
I do not want to fix this
I want to feel your bones give way
Hear one clean break that proves The universe can miss a step someday.
I want your spitebone
that one snapped piece the doctors cannot set right
I want you wincing when the weather turns
remembering my bite, If envy is a disease
then I am already gone
I want to see you limp for once Instead of walking on.
When you talk down to me in that gentle tone like you are coaching some stray toward better days
I imagine your jaw shattered, wired shut
no more sainted little phrases, no more polished praise
You lean over my life like a coach, a savior
a priest blessing my flawed attempt
I want to knock you back into your own wreckage and leave you there
unkempt.
There is a self that forgives you
that understands you did not ask for this pedestal
That self is dead
buried under years of watching you float while I drowned
What is left is a creature built out of swallowed rage and starved-out pride
Clutching one wish: To see your stride denied.
I want your spitebone
that one snapped piece the doctors cannot set right
I want you wincing when the weather turns
remembering my bite, If envy is a disease
then I am already gone
I want to see you limp for once Instead of walking on.
When they sign your cast and call you brave for surviving your first real fall
You will never know the quiet grin on my face Remembering I wanted It all.