My brother. Me.

Riding along the coast, I can smell the scent of ocean seasoned with freshly cut grass. I hear your voice clear as a gong in the August sun. “When will you let me come and see the ocean with you?”. I smile a little, imagining you seeing all the ocean you want now that your body is no longer a trap. This world was never ready for your brave heart and gentle voice.
You loved in such intense silence and never could articulate it. Time spent with you was always filled with reminiscence of our short-lived childhood.

I imagine that millions of years ago you were a star dust that looked millions of years into the future and picked me to be your brother for the short time we had.

When the phone call of your transition came, I was standing in an empty room, three storeys above a room filled with toddlers singing nursery rhymes. It was as though their melodic voices were predestined to cradle me in that precise moment, to remind me that the children in us would forever live and never be erased by space, time or death. So, in the moment that my legs gave in, I felt your dreams swoop into my spirit and saddle onto my dreams. So today, I am you. I am sorry I ever thought we were apart.

For Thabo Ncube 24 July 1979 to 8 August 2015.