“My Parents Are Cruel to My Brother” by Robin Black (fiction, ’05)

A story by Robin Black (fiction, ‘05) appears in Waxwing:

 

My Parents Are Cruel to My Brother

My parents are cruel to my brother. He says they are cruel to me too, but that I have, we both have, become blind and deaf and numb to their cruelty — for ourselves, not for the other. He says that we have switched our skins so I feel his hurt and he feels mine. He says that when they stand close to him, he isn’t there, when they are near enough to breathe on me, I disappear. He says I don’t remember, because you don’t. He says it is like death that way. [… continue reading here.]