Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

The wind picked up,
and the fire spread.
I was left for dead.

I don't know why I brought you up.
You've been gone for years, but this year,
this year, you would be seventeen.

And Ocala would still be sitting in my living room.
Whistling and saying things, like "Pretty Bird",
And I would sneakily give him Mountain Dew.

You, you would've probably grown your hair out,
not keeping it so short and conformed.
You would be talking about college.

Seven years. I've blocked you out the best I could,
And today, it just slipped out, all of it.
I almost broke down then and there.

You'd mock me for being so pale,
"Where did your farmer's tan go, Jen-Jen?"
And I wouldn't have an answer.

I don't have answers anymore,
can't stand to talk to most of them now.
It's hard to look them in the eye.

Clayton, it's a word that hasn't graced
my tongue in years. It's unfamiliar,
I stumbled over it when I said it earlier.

You'd play much better now, I would assume.
And put my kazoo to shame, but I still beast at
hop-skotch...not like that's something to be proud of...

You, my brother would've made a fine man.
But the world didn't agree with me,
so at the tender age of nine, I lost my hero.

I don't know what really compelled me to write this,
not that I don't love my brother and miss him so,
but this, this is the first time I've really done this.

To sit and think of what could've been.
And to recall the moments of us, singing
Promenade/Carolina.

I suppose near death incidents do that do you,
hearing the screech of tires, the sound of crunching metal,
knowing, that maybe, if she hadn't pressed the breaks...

Clayton James Eller (1993-2003)