Chris,
I came back to some poems I had commented on previously, and I wanted to add something about the first poem above.
This is about your brother, who, as I saw in your story, is 5 years older than you and ran away from home when you were 12. I can imagine how bad that must have hurt and how abandoned you must have felt. You were alone at a very vulnerable age with two violent and abusive parents.
But would it help you to think back to what this must have been like for him? He was being beaten and abused as well, and as the older sibling he would have begun to see he had options at a time when you were not yet able to perceive those same possibilities. Remember too that when he left it was right after an episode in which he finally stood up to your father, refused to be beaten anymore and fought back. He might have left feeling he had no choice.
In another case like this, Chris, the two brothers finally found one another and it was a powerful experience for both of them. They were both able to see that what they did they did in order to survive. Yes, the older brother had run away, but so too did the younger one as soon as he was older and had the chance. The older brother had not tried to get back in touch with his little brother not because he didn't care, but because he was so full of guilt and shame. He feared he would be rejected and blamed.
I hope you two find each other again. It shouldn't be too difficult since both of you are now over 18 and will be generating all sorts of ways you can be located: credit cards, driver's license, tax returns, etc. I think you will find that each of you was in an utterly impossible situation, one that neither of you created. For both of you it finally got so bad that the only option was to run.
Much love,
Larry
_________________________
Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking my freedom highway.
Nobody living can make me turn back:
This land was made for you and me. (Woody Guthrie)
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