My Brother’s Keeper
I can no longer endure his misery.
His fruitless cries for help or water
Or at the phantoms in his mind
Now go unheeded.
I cannot attend him.
His need drains me.
I must abandon moral values
(Perhaps even my ethics,
A far more serious case),
For my own sake
And I turn away.
His delirium becomes my delirium
And his troubled dreams
Haunt my nights,
Becoming mine.
It shocks me to find myself
The source of my own pain.
I am helpless to relieve his suffering
So I am left to endure my own.