Two brothers and a sister
walk out into the winter night to take the recycling down to the curb
The brothers take the light bags of plastic down to the curb
leaving the sister with the heavy boxes full of old papers

As her brothers go inside her dog comes out
the sister drags the box of papers through the snow
the dog follows
the sister gets past the fence line starts to shiver from the cold
the dog also shivers
the sister pulls the box to the side of the road
the dog runs back into the house

the sister starts to run back into the house
now that her job is done
the sister slips and falls
before even taking a step
the sister lies on the edge of the road

a car now speeding towards the sister
and the sister doesn't move
the sister didn't run because when the sister ran
the brothers would trip her
the sister didn't crawl because when the sister crawled
the brothers kicked her

The sister was hit by the car
not because she was
afraid
but that she wanted her brothers to stop hitting her
her parents to stop giving a blind eye to her
all because she wanted to be treated fairly
but the sister knew
that what was expected from her
family
would never come