Dusk

[For my brother]

We began to dance when the light fell, the sunlight fading, the sky filled with pressure. It was so hot that day when the bats came, that day when we burned down the gazebo, that day when we knew things wouldn’t ever be the same.

When the bats came, dusk had lain down over our heads, the sweet stick of wine and remorse formed fools clouds around our eyes. We giggled and flicked lit cigarettes into each other’s hair.

We were invincible and you laughed in the face of death.

Maybe we were the ones that were afraid and you knew you were sick, maybe I had forgotten any sense of reality. Maybe death had come to get you and the bats came as a warning.

They were on our side; they wanted us to stay together, to not be parted by illness.

We would fight, like hell if needed, against death and we would remember dusk as our reclamation hour. When we drank so much wine we forgot each other’s names and lit a fire and danced like wild people. We exorcized your demons; we beat mine out of my chest. 

We awoke at dawn in the grass, clutching bottles and each other, bruised and sweating. You were coughing so much your hands shook; I took you home and wrapped you up in a blanket, kissed your forehead, and smiled.

“We probably should have died last night.”

After that morning we strayed away from each other, we had climbed to the edge of death together, we had danced our last dance together, but we had lived. It was too much to stay friends after something like that.

Dusk reminds me of living.