I love everybody. It’s a hardship unduly deserved, but a burden I must carry.

I have a hard time finding a memory of favor, for all feel sick and frightening. I’d constantly have PTSD nightmares about my inability to fight back, it’d merely tickle him.

He was but a child without the chance to live. He hurt me so harshly, yet my father had hurt him more. By his abuse, my brother chose the safety of the streets, rather than the shelter of love.

I don’t blame him, I almost became him, I was just lucky. An agonizing fortune.

I wish he wasn’t gone, he deserved his life as much as any of us. He had found god and began repenting. He knew they were killing his old gang mates and he was not long for this world if he stayed in Chicago.

I too would rather die near mother, than coward away. For what is life if not taking a stand and declaring your intent on this world. He had found god in his final weeks, he said to my mother, “He is your compensation for all the misery you have experienced.”

I hate that he gave me such beauty and value, because everyday I have to make sure he’s right. Otherwise I have forgotten him. What would his suffering bring if not my compassion for mankind.