absences

Beloved brother

i remember 

i.
spending endless hours trying to teach “I love you”
in Russian: Ya lyublyu tebya without success
if only I’d tried Yellow blue tibia I might’ve succeeded

ii.
walking round the cathedral after midnight in mist
looking for the cross you’d dropped earlier in the day
we were unsuccessful in that — but it’s still a favourite memory

iii.
talking to you about the car crash that killed him
& how i’d hit the bottle so fucking hard afterwards
it wasn’t fair to find — then lose — eternity so quickly

now you’re gone, how, how to go on