If you were any younger, or if I was any older we’d be pretty much twins. Sometimes I feel like we are even though there’s the undeniable age gap of 1 year and 1 month. Sometimes wish we were. Twins I mean.
Even though we aren’t, I feel like we’ve shared some aspects of life like twins would. Mother has told us that I used to be your translator in kindergarten. Basically I covered for your lag in speech development and I understood you like a twin would. Not only that, we were also mistaken for twins when mother clothed us in matching outfits. If you were my twin, you would be the social one, and I the scared and shy one. Both intelligent though.
Maybe I wouldn’t be so shy if we had been on the same starting line. Maybe I’d be more complete if I hadn’t been standing in your year and 1 month long shadow. Growing up it was natural for me to cover in your shadow. It was safe and familiar and you were a good role model for me. It was also easy to relate to you, since I’d be where you are now in a year anyway. Pop culture and it’s shiny idols were of no importance, they were distant flickering stars in the night sky viable to dim and die out of time any moment, and you were my Sun and Moon. Ever present. Constant like the bedrock beneath my feet. With you I didn’t feel threatened even when we were fighting.
But then we grew apart. You pushed, and I didn’t even try to hold on. You let go, and I never really grabbed you. I didn’t want to be a bother to you, o I watched how you found new friends while I drifted aimlessly hoping for someone to find me and take me home. There were people who found me but no one cherished me like you did. While you grew up my time stood still and I lived like some abandoned broken doll. Eventually I realized our parents had given their first born the gift of life and their unplanned second child was a china doll. Carefully made but fragile. Lifeless.
Sister. I broke when I was in 8th grade. Year after I entered the same junior high school as you. I tried to recover, but every time time I break it’s harder to collect the pieces. And each time after mending there are more and more of those fine thin lines. Sister, I know you aren’t coming back to me, you already have an unplanned family of your own, but I’m hurting. I miss you and don’t seem to be able to find anyone to take your place and I’m not sure if I can piece myself back together on my own for much longer. I selfishly wish for you to return to me. I wish you never grew up or apart from me. I lo-
Sister, can I call you my twin just once silently in my mind after the birds fall asleep, and before the morning dew starts gathering, just a few days after summer solstice on a clear night. I won’t tell anyone. Not even you.
One day 