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For the fistfighter.

The sea was screaming my name on the day I met you,
and my sister was shaking in my arms.
Your brothers were crying, and you held them in your arms,
close to your heart as if your strength
could keep everything from breaking.
Everyone knew your name,
everyone on this tiny, godforsaken rock,
because you had fought your way, with fists and blood and tears
(not your tears, not ever)
all the way to the top.
But to me you were that boy,
thin and wiry,
the only one who understood anger
and grief, too.
When I lost my sister, you were there.
You pushed through the crowd and led me outside,
and away from the sobbing masses
and the broken adults who forgot their children
two children screamed at the cloud-scudded sky.
I shouted and cried and screamed
and you stood there, taking it,
even when I beat my small fists against your wiry chest.
You stood there, and you hummed a song, ar hyd a nos, all through the night,
and held my hands
to your warm, beating heart, and we stayed like that, silent,
until morning.
After that day, we did not speak for three years,
and when we did,
it was only to fight.
I hated that you had seen my weakness, my tears,
hated that I had never seen yours,
and you hated that I seemed to have forgotten.
And then, one day, when I elbowed my way into a world full of men,
and you looked up from your bitter fight,
I saw your eyes
and I knew.

By KL