For my brother - Wedding Dress Prompt - by Holly

This is a poem I wrote around the anniversary of 9/11, thinking back on how the tragedy affected my family. I don't usually write poetry, so I would appreciate feedback.

You missed my last year of high school
because a man in a uniform handed you some papers
sending you to a place we’d been happy to ignore
a pit of sand, drowning in oil and fire

We all turned inward. The TV, chattering
for so many years was silenced
as soon as the reports started
Nightly news cast shadows over our eyes

I rejected all forms of media, even the radio
My friends would complain, the same CD in the car
The same song, comforting as I drove aimlessly
Anything to avoid the compressing silence in our house

I was thirteen when the towers fell
3000 miles away, it seemed like a dream
A movie for viewing, terror etched in film
Still not quite real, even when you left.

You had always promised to threaten my prom date
with the rifle you kept locked up under your bed
But instead I got an email saying ‘he better have behaved’
and ‘you looked pretty in that dress’

You were always my protector
(sometimes abuser)
and when you went to fight for something bigger
I felt smaller than ever

The world has changed now, years gone by
We all survived with our own subtle scars
But you’ve never really resolved
why you’re so much quieter.