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I'm a bottler. My brother is a bottler. We bottle in very different ways, though.
I bottle my tears in little glass bottles behind my eyes so that they can never escape.
I bottle up words in my brain so that my mouth can't find them, and that my sister's ears can't hear them.
I bottle the code that connects my never ending urge to just buy a plane ticket to my eyes on my debit card and my fingers on a keyboard.
I have a collection of bottles behind my lungs. He has a collection of bottles behind the couch.
My brother doesn't like to fill up bottles like I do. He likes to empty them.
He finds sweet nectars and drains the bottles in one sitting into his belly.
My brother doesn't care to drink slowly, or enjoy the liquor. He guzzles. He funnels, more honestly. He goes until he can't function.
His body has become a sewer.
Bad liver. Spoiled brain. Chaotic memory. Red aggression.
While he sips booze from jugs that he hides, my siblings turn their eyes to me but my bottles don't break.
I bottle that I worry for my brother. A lot.
Does that mean that in order for him to stop bottling, so must I?
Published by Emma Rathe
7 years ago 
