In the book When my Brother was an Aztec, Natalie Diaz writes about the struggles of her family faces because of her brother’s drug abuse. She uses many vivid words to create images of the effects the drugs have on her brother. His drug abuse drives her family nuts. She describes drugs as the greatest disaster for the Indian reservation because it affects her entire family, not just her brother. Her book uses many different ways to show the reader how drugs are monsters since they make her brother crazy, which can destroy the relationships within many families in our society. When her brother takes drugs he does not know who he is and does not know what he is doing. It seems like her brother is putting his life at risk, so her family worries about his health and future.This fearful feeling increases every day, which makes it hard on her family.She fights her brother to make him stop taking drugs,but feels scared and powerless because he’s addicted. She did what she could to do to makes her brother change his habits, but no one can easily overcome drug addiction. Diaz’s mom looks at her son helplessly,painful with tears in her eyes. All she could say was,“O God”, which appears in the poem called “My Brother at 3 A.M.:
"He sat cross-legged, weeping on the steps / when Mom unlocked and opened the front door. / O God, he said.O God. / He wants to kill me, Mom. / When Mom unlocked and opened the front door / at 3 a.m., she was in her nightgown, Dad was asleep. / He wants to kill me, he told her, / looking over his shoulder. / 3 a.m. and in her night gown, /Dad asleep, /What's going on? she asked.Who wants to kill you? / He looked over his shoulder. /The devil does. Look at him, over there. / She asked,What are you on? Who wants to kill you? / The sky wasn’t black or blue but the green of a dying night. / The devil, look at him, over here. /He pointed to the corner house. / The sky wasn’t black or blue but the dying green of night. / Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives. / My brother pointed to the corner house. / His lips flickered with sores. / Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives. /O God, I can see the tail, he said.O God, look. / Mom winced at the sores on his lips. / It’s sticking out from behind the house./O God, see the tail, he said.Look at the goddamned tail. / He sat cross-legged,weeping on the front steps. / Mom finally saw it, a hellish vision, my brother. / O God, O God,she said."
In this poem, Diaz gives clear details about what happened on that night to show the reader how drugs cause her brother to behave and look a bit crazy. The addiction has control over him and he loses his personal identity. The drugs make him seem like a dead-alive person because he starts to lose his mind. The author writes about her brother’s situation to warn people to avoid drugs since not abusing them is best for our health.
In addition to the vivid words she uses to portray her brother’s condition,Diaz shows her anger toward her brother’s resistance to quit using drugs with words that create an image of her screaming. She is mad because her brother comes home at “3 a.m.”then wakes her mom up to open the door for him. The mom feels sad, which challenges the readers to think about the issues of the drug problems in our society and how they impact more than just the abuser. As I read her poem, I thought about the style in which I should write my own poem. The words she chooses for this poem are very short,but give us a complete image of her brother’s drug addiction. I know that most of the poem is written to show the difference between the sad and happy moments the author experiences, which is not easy to do since this is a hard, personal story. As we know, each family has its own happy moments and sad situations.Diaz’s poem gives us a full picture of her troublemaker brother as illegal drugs ruined his life and a negatively impacted the family as a whole. When I read her poem, it made me think about how there should be programs in school systems to help prevent drug abuse from happening in the future. These programs would be helpful for upcoming generations so that young people understand how harmful drugs really are.
