siberia orion { d2 } fin

siberia --

I've always loved piano. 

It's a trade skill, my mother's soft hands around my shoulders -- "you all just need something to enjoy." Just something to pass the time, Bree's smiles and laughter and Evander's bickering with ma; I held my tongue. Playing with my button up, button down, button back up shirt in the corner, laying on the couch while my mother focused on them. They never really held my hand through anything but I guess with triplets you've only got two hands anyways.

I learned to do life as it comes by myself, for myself.

Ride or die, we work together half of survival, half of necessity; I love them. Without a single skip of my heart I love the two of them like I always have but holding your breath under water for so long you learn what the cold feels like. Rooftop nights and biting into my own skin, how do I get through this. 
(How do I get us through this-

I promised not to drink, not out of fear - my father hitting my back and buying my first drink; his own brand. Charlie smiling across the bar, flipping coins with a bowler hat on. "Now son, remember," he was a burly man, built of stone and bricks and no matter how much money was on his skin he would never be anything different, "drink to live, not live to drink." Addiction tasted like gunpowder, I strayed away. 

Bite kicked my ass, I choked and my father's laugh radiated through the walls and I can't tell if it was real. Tracing the palm of my hand, midnight silver cutting into the thick of my skin -- it's hard. It's hard to process them as real things in my memory, that at one point they were people and not portraits, but my father's always been a business man. He taught me that, what life to the backbone really is. 

How do I get us through this. 

"A toast to me," a solemn whisper. A lie. 

Scotch in a coffee mug, I've been riding rock bottom for a while. December breezes like razor blades, slicing metal into a cardigan and I'm the price of these winter winds, hmm. Sleeping gets hard, but that's my problem: I focus too much on the hard shit. Maybe I just focus too much. A sip of scotch, swallow the bite; I should start gardening. Old vines growing through the bricks of my father's skin, he was going to fall one of these days anyways. It's what I tell myself, through 5am thoughts and whiskey tellings, it's the only way I know how. 

I'm terrible at this. 

At this -- whatever this is, trying to keep the four of us afloat, to keep Evander from doing stupid shit. From keeping mouths shut. I trust them, I trust them, I trust them, I have to, they're my siblings, Bree's cold hands gripping my arm -- "we know what you're going through," I shudder. Axe in my hand and blood up to my thumbs,

("we have to-")

Contempt runs in my veins; contempt, content, they bleed together like all the rest of these blurry things. I stand up, rubbing my eyes with my palms and I try to breathe, asking myself how long I can do this and the only thing that comes out is my father's voice: for as long as I can. For as long as I have to, for as long as there are people who need me. I'm not alone in this, and maybe that's why I'm so upset, why it's driving me so mad that I'm not just the only one with water up to my eyes; we did this together. We survived together. 

It's hard to process that they were real. That they loved us at one point. I sat on my father's shoulders as a kid, I wanted to follow every step he did and in a way I did. Every career day and piano key, drinking with him and business friends -- I thought it'd achieve something. I can't even process the same man, a shot of scotch. My father hit my back, blood on his soul and asked for my help, our help. And with a shred of dignity I believed he was still a good man. 

The three of us buried Charlie. Evander tried not to cry, I held my breath, axe in hand.

Fuck.

I thought, long and hard and through stammering sobs I buried my father's sins, one limb at a time. I chopped up the body, the other two helped me and as a prodigal son I crossed my heart and prayed I was still a good man. I prayed and cried and bleed in every way thinking we'd be okay, that we'd survive and an empire set in greed would stay safe for as long as we lived and it wasn't convincing. 

We were left. 

Over sips of scotch -- three simple words. I never cried in front of them and I held my shaky breaths as I realized how fucked over we were; I traced the line of my palms. My piano hands, watching my siblings -- that's how. I cross my heart with a heavy hand.

I don't know how to keep them alive, but I only know that I have to.  And in ways my father never could,

I have to.