you can't touch my brother

head over heels, you say. like it would be anywhere else. 

i've seen the way my brother looks at you, rat. the way he thinks about you. the notebooks scrawled end-to-end with your name and the chewed-off cuticles and bruises and flowers with all their petals torn off.

i love you not.

i hate you, rat, for what you represent, what could be and has been and what i've been running from. you're the side of me i never wanted to return to and it's torture to watch you ruin him when you don't know the way he puts bullets in your gun and turns the safety off. 

but whatever helps you sleep at night, right?