Leader of the Band

A sestina I wrote for creative writing class... Familial trauma and all that.

Leader of the band. 

Your blood lives in me,

Resides in eyes, unlike mine, yet familiar;

That old glint, bathed in shades of blue and green,  I sometimes fear,

Reminding us of shadows we share

Down to the bones.

I have never broken a bone. 

And, anyway, these things don’t heal with a band.

I just wish you were here, to share

What I’ve seen, all the questions in me.

Why is it we live in all of this love and all of this fear?

Laughing it away, because the feeling is familiar.

There’s a memory, all too familiar;

You had thoughts you tried to shake from your bones.

So, to keep away the fear,

You snapped your wrist, harsh, with a rubber band.

I asked if you could do the same to me,

You did and, on the skin, there was the burn we shared. 

My father’s eyes are blue, this we do not share.

But the rage is familiar,

As are all his favorite bands

That tell me of a pain he hides in his bones,

How it’s come to be, he loves in fear;

I know, because his heart beats the same as me. 

I wonder how your toughness runs through me.,

Even from beyond the grave, there are vices we share,

Ways to snap out of it, to soften to fear;

Like when the bourbon makes the blood stir, familiar.

I’m only following what was given to my bones,

You are gone, but it is in this, we band. 

I remember that rubber band.

I think of it when my father snaps at me.

I would give away my every bone,

To ask you questions; questions nobody asks, I need to share.

Like why is this hurt, this hurt that stays, familiar?

I ask you, leader-gone, the giver of the fear.