The Brother I Bury While You're Still Alive Poem by cassidy Lovato

I used to speak your name
like it meant something steady.

Like no matter what you broke,
who you were,
where you went,
you would always find your way back
to something real.

I built you up in rooms
you never walked into.
Defended you
in conversations you never heard.
Carried pride for you
you didn't even ask for.

I believed in your comeback
more than you did.

And maybe that was my mistake.

Because I kept waiting
for the version of you
that knew what mattered.

The one who survived
everything that should have killed him
and still chose people.

But somewhere between
the house,
the family,
the life you built—

you forgot how to show up.

Not in big ways.
Not in dramatic gestures.

In the simplest ones.

A call that never came.
A birthday that passed like I didn't exist.
A silence so loud
I had to finally hear it for what it was.

Nothing.

You talk about accountability
like it's something owed to you.

Like love is conditional
and respect is something
you get to measure out
depending on the day.

But I watched you.

I watched you turn your back
on the woman who gave you everything
when you had nothing.

Watched you ignore her
like she was disposable
the moment she didn't fit
the version of peace you wanted.

Watched you stay quiet
when it actually mattered.

And that told me everything
I needed to know.

Because this isn't about one moment.
It's about a pattern.

Of absence.
Of excuses.
Of choosing comfort
over connection.

You say you want family.

But family isn't silence
when things get hard.
It isn't showing up
only when it's easy.
It isn't rewriting truth
to protect your own reflection.

And I'm done pretending
this is something it's not.

I'm done reaching
for a brother
who only exists
in pieces of the past.

You're still here.

Breathing. Living.
Building your life.

And somehow
I have still lost you.

So let me make this clear
in the only way that matters now—

I am not angry
because I hate you.

I am angry
because I loved you
loudly,
loyally,
without question—

and you answered that
with distance
and silence.

I will not beg
for a place in your life.
I will not compete
for effort.
I will not shrink myself
to fit into something
that only exists
when it's convenient for you.

You made your choices.

And this—
this distance,
this absence,
this version of us—

is the consequence.

So I'll grieve you
like you're gone.

Not because you are,
but because the brother I had
would never have let it get here.