heron kruse / d12 / cb (fin)

Coarse hand, thick boots.
— there's a symmetry
to every boy here.

I grew up with coal in my mouth instead of diamonds and rubies; that one silver spoon in my house had caught decay long ago. Our house growls at night from wind, shivers amid dark winters, and blooms in spring, wildly, unbearably. The bricks don't have mortar, there are forests of black soot growing out of the windowsill. Nonetheless, the Kruses are survivors, endurers, born with armor as skin.

Byron's the homemade dynamite; I'm the water needed to extinguish his flare. You could tell young boys to not dance with violence, but that doesn't mean they're going to heed your words.

Bryon, on the other hand, doesn't: those nights squandered away on plucking out glass shards from knuckles, stitching abrasions. I take up a patronizing tone with him, he retorts: “Our ages aren't that further apart.” It's the sonorous truth which falls on deaf ears.

“I'm still older than you, asshole.”

What's generic amidst us are the green eyes, color of faraway woodlands, a crown of dark threads resting upon our heads, and the resilience of our skin. I don't share his streak of violence; he lacks my knack in fixing up bruises. And some folks dare to brand us as twins. With no battle scars littered along hands and demons of my own — I'm kindred to none.

There’s no serenity to my dawns and no rest to my nights, both occupied by mining jobs, sorting out coals for shipment, collecting herbs, surviving. Most say the wealthiest, or the keenest persists in twelve;

I am neither.

But, these hands know their way around a coal hammer, this skull holds an extensive knowledge about herbalism, the art of healing through seeds, through the rawness of nature. Perchance, survival is meant for the medians too. I have survived through an array of things: puberty, accidents, a hangover from cheap gin,

and our father’s late perish—
maybe, we could rule the last one out.

[inspired by dars]