Brothers

This was written by one of the incredible men inside Reveealed 2023. He wanted to share this message:

As an Asian man, I'm sharing this story because of how complicated it is and how I refuse to be reduced. I hope after reading it, you feel less alone.

Content warnings: there is incest in this story. 

I think what comes with sharing stories is that you're forced a little bit outside of yourself--you have to make your thoughts make sense to someone else, so you end up treating yourself with a little more kindness. And so that was the work I did here and am bringing today. I hope that sort of the shame and fear in telling this story might be taken away a little if I expose it to some sunlight. So that's what you guys are, a little sunlight. 

What can be said? That it was a time when Saturdays, exhausted from the week of early mornings in high school, unreasonable 7:02 am first periods, Saturdays were for sleeping in until noon. Most saturdays, I would go to my brother's room, or he would come to mine, each of us carrying a blanket that felt like 20 lbs. My mother used to put two comforters in a single duvet, a habit I have carried with me into my adulthood and that remains with me today. 

When I was eight or nine, the year being 1997, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I remember crying. I remember trying to soothe myself and, pushing through the haziness of memories a quarter-century ago, the surface of it reflects thoughts of sleeplessness. Of not knowing how to shut out the shrieks of my mother, or of the low, rough voice of my father, their words unintelligible either from barriers of wall or language. Though you didn't need to know the words to understand the exchange of hatred happening. Families shouldn't live in dormitories--in student housing. It makes living feel less like you're in a house and more like you're in the panopticon of a prison, each occupant an audience, captive to the thoughts and feelings of the other. Inescapable. So yeah, fuck trying to sleep. And so, finding myself sleepless at nine. I asked my brother to come sleep in my bed. Or maybe he came on his own, it's hard to remember. He would jump down from his top bunk and he would hold me and that was the only time I could find sleep (sometimes) when my parents fought (often). 

Over time, when I was struggling, I would beg him to sleep with me and he would sometimes be reluctant to oblige me. I remember being half confused, half admiring him in the ways that little brothers do--how was he able to hold it in? How did he not care that our worlds felt like shattering? That everything was so fragile? How did he turn it off? That's what I wanted most--to turn it off. So I asked him. Asked him how he was able to hold it in. I would ask how he was able to keep from crying--why aren't you crying? He would never give me an answer, or he just didn't have the words for me at 10 years old. It didn't matter. At least with him, I felt safe and that things were going to be okay. 

We'd keep sharing a bed through middle school. When we finally had separate beds, we maintained the habit. And it became a little or a lot more confusing. When we would hop into each others' beds, we would become more intimate in our touch, nuzzling each other and giving each other eskimo kisses. And we would spoon each other with erections. One time our father barged into the room and condemned us with the strongest language he knew how to use. Called us perverted and disgusting. Sort of how I feel now recounting this, still trying to make sense of it. 

I don't remember when we stopped, only that we did. Maybe as late as when he left for college. I haven't really thought about it in a while. 

I guess I should say it's natural. I understand that as a child, I found safety when my brother would hold me and make me feel safe. Our bodies at that age were developing, and I find that with a little sorrow in my heart, there's also a little beauty in that relationship. He made me feel enough. That I was. That my brother had a heart big enough to make us both feel safe. He provided me safety for when I needed it. And holding this thought in my mind simultaneously with the feelings of shame, the thoughts of dry humping my own brother, the pain that I feel describing this. It is also enough to just say that both are real feelings to me. And I don't need to say anything more.