He was the lens

I have been thinking a lot about my brother Mark, the brother who died almost 2 months ago.
For half of this life I have actively disliked him.
Mark has been the lens through which I have viewed myself. In knowing him, I have come to know me. Mark in many ways was my nightmare. I was desperately afraid that the remark from my parents "you are just like Mark" was correct and that I was indeed the mess that he so clearly was.
Thus I found my motivation. Because for three-quarters of it I have had not becoming like him as almost the only true goal I've had in life.
Mark was my Nemesis in the Classical meaning of the term., he was the Goddess waiting to deliver punishment should my own abundant arrogance grow too big for its own good. He was always the warning that should I get caught up in my own glory that I would fall. He was the nagging certainty that should I fail that the slope into the abyss was both nearby and very steep.
Mark was my most feared potential.
He was the shadow to my light.
Mark was the complete quiet to my raging, searing, shrieking passion.
He was the passive acceptance to my utter unwillingness to surrender.
He tolerated and understood what I did not.
Mark was the earthing point to the lightning that posessed me.
When I was at my most animated and sending bolts of thought and ideas,
Mark was at his quietest.
Whilst I have spent my life tearing myself apart in a relentless, ruthless quest to both know and reinvent myself. Demanding utter self knowledge and never for a moment listening to anyone else.
Mark accepted the opinions of others of him as a Truth.
Where I dared and challenged, harassed and badgered.
He accepted.
He ran and failed.
I stood and fought and wondered why the fuck I couldn't give in.
He doubted himself completely.
I never took my eyes off my self belief.
In all of my chaos,
In all of my demanding answers from the Gods,
There is one thing I have never understood.
Why didn't you fight!?
Why couldn't you shriek and rage?
Why with you being so much my opposite is there such a hole in me?
Why does a world without you seem that much emptier?
Why in a world where I am loved, is there that profound loneliness?
Perhaps because my brother you exemplified that better part of me.
You had the quiet where I was the noise.
You had the compassion where I had the scorn.
You had the contentment I will never know.
You were simply my brother.