Joseph Veronneau


Brothers

One boy would wear his clothes outward, the other, inside out. They were alike in all ways except their age, being just like true brothers should be—at least some of the time. One boy would allow the world to engulf him whole. He would say: today, I shall learn Japanese; and he did. Another day he said: I will dye my hair green and then learn the Pan Flute better than Zamfir; and he did. These were not done to be topics of conversation; they were strictly for a purpose unmentioned.

The other took things in too, but was not a practical user of these things. He thought the world was beautiful and tried to replicate them by buying similarities: cracked records that would emulate sounds of nature; baby dolls that were as close to cute as the many strollers he'd seen pass him by.

In the end, they tried to be one another; they wound up being halfway of everything. One saw no purpose in the world anymore, and died. To hold your breath like that is a challenge. The other stared off into the sky, and lost site of the beauty of impracticality, and held his breath. He did not die, but wandered off worrying about dying, and loving the thought of death equally.



Joseph Veronneau ran Scintillating Publications from 1999-2009, publishing chapbooks and the 'zine AGUA. His own works have appeared in places like Offerta Speciale, Lost and Found Times, Ditch, Counterexample Poetics, etc. He is a B.A. candidate in Writing and Literature at Burlington College.
 
 
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