Flame Of The Forest

We grew up with our imaginary friends
And played Superman and Batman and Catwoman
He was Michelangelo and I was Leonardo
And we made our neighbor Donatello
We hit each other and screamed and laughed
We made drawings for Mom
Wrote letters to Dad
I coloured inside the lines
And he coloured outside them
We made fun of the boy down the street
Called him "mutt"
Invented a code language all our own
So no one would know what we spoke about
I still talk to him sometimes
When there's no one else to talk to

We climbed the gnarled yellow-flower tree
Whose scientific name I still don't know
Where each of us had our designated branch
The tree still grows
We lay on a red carpet of flame-of-the-forest
And imagined people in the clouds
For hours
And sailed paper boats in the gutter
Outside our house when it rained
We made friends with the street dog
And called him Tommy
A light-brown caffè latte dog, he was
It was a four when it hit the neighbor's wall
And a sixer when it hit his window
We flew the orange kite for weeks
Until the manja cut our fingers
Until the pesky boy on Second Cross
Cut it and claimed it as a prize

We made a tent with the striped rug and some yellow rope
And wombat stew with leaves and flowers
And red fish curry with powdered bricks
I never understood why he liked only sambar
And he never understood why I liked only chutney
We made Maggi on a candle flame in my room at midnight
And microwave popcorn that we thought
No one else would smell
I cut him with scissors and pushed him off the roof
He took all my money and sold my gold bracelet
For dirty magazines
But I still forgave him

He loved his girl and they went on the terrace
They thought no one else knew
He wrote poems for her
But she was someone else's
Never his
I wonder if she knows how he loved her
He wrote her name everywhere
It's still there
Carved in the cement
Written there on the day it was poured
Written there until they break this house down
And he knew that we knew about her
But he didn't care

I still have his drawings
And his autograph book
With Lucky Ali's signature
That he got in 1995
And how cool we thought that was
All his photographs stare back at me
What do we do with them?
They're always smiling and that smile's frozen in time
Frozen as if he's still around somewhere
He didn't pay his rent so he could buy Eminem's biography
And he forced me to love reggaeton
Just because he did
He liked RHCP
I can't listen to a single song of theirs
Without thinking of him
So if they come here
I'll go to their concert

We drank blue Pepsi and watched the World Cup
Even when India played like jackasses
We watched all 78 laps of the Monaco Grand Prix
Just to see Schumi lift that trophy
And especially to watch him
Spray champagne on the crowd
That was the best part
And we cried when Senna died
We went swimming
And he used to sink 'cause he was skinny
And I used to float 'cause I was fat
I want to get a tattoo to remember him by
But it's ironic that I'll never be able to show it to him
I'll get a tattoo to match his
Someday
When I have the guts
A black and red one just like his

He was going to get a black Lamborghini
And I was gonna get a dark green Porsche
With all the money that we'd make
When we grew up
Oh, we'd be rolling in it
It was our destiny
Or so we thought
We video-gamed for 12 hours a day
Nintendo and Sega
That were God's gift to mankind back then
I played WWE SmackDown on PS2 the other day
And I wished I could've played with him
He'd have loved it
And we'd have kicked each other's asses
All the way to the railway track
Where they're building the stupid flyover
Another architectural marvel
He'll never see

He called me "fish-face" and "wolves"
Which later got shortened to "Ulves"
And I called him "dashiki"
We just liked the sound of these words
I sang Garfield's theme song
Over and over and over
"I hope you bring lots of spaghetti"
Just to irritate him
And sent him corny text messages
And did non-stop radio commentary
Just to bug him
We didn't actually need words to talk to each other
We just spoke to pass the time

We made plans to go to Goa
To dance to trance at Anjuna
And then after that at Paradiso
To eat the tuna pizza with olive oil
At the Italian wood-fire oven place
At the flea market full of Israeli hookers
To do the cool walk down Baga's main road
As if Tito's and Mambo's belonged to our dad
To wear beads like hippies and wear straw slippers
And flowers in my hair and rings in his ears
But it never happened 'cause he never got well

It was all undone even before it was done
Our dreams were not ours
Our lives are not ours
Nothing is forever
He was so broken and I wanted to fix him
But I couldn't
I couldn't
I begged them to take his pain away
They took his pain away all right
But with it, they took him too
I never bargained for that
"No! Wait! Stop! I want him back!"
I wanted to scream and yell at fate
But I haven't
I still haven't
It's inside me and I don't know it it'll stay there forever
Fade away
Or explode in a burst of white light one day
And whether I'll even feel it
I don't know where he is
And I wonder if he knows where I am
I'm slowly forgetting him but I don't want to

He was my brother and then he died
He's not my brother anymore
He's not my brother anymore
He's not my brother anymore