The Death of The Other, Her Twin.

rough notes - scrambling for a story.

There is no way of speaking this. This took place in an instant. This, also, had its life abstracted then. 

There is no way of telling what stayed longer: its presence or absence. I think of them both. Always. 

When I am unaware I am thinking, I am thinking, thinking of it. 

Its absence furthers its presence. Its presence is prolonged by its absence. 

I am confused, as well. Unsure of where it stands or of the time I am surrounded by.

The instant of its death was the instant it began living within me. It will never, now, stop dying. Until the instant of my own—

When I fall into an unknown embrace, and have a single hope as my eyes open, to like whatever it is I am held against. 

Here, I will try to share what I cannot speak. It would be impossible in any other form to let my inside be aired out; revealing for you, a revelation—I hope—for me. I am compelled to write by a want forcing me to come closer to how I feel. If I am to acknowledge I feel at all, I try, try to write, so as to not give sound to my thoughts. Tears spiraling at a pace and path of their own, my hands trying to push them away from all that I am, mouthing a voice that when I hear I know does not belong to me. I am better than what these things suggest and cannot let myself speak on their behalf, for even if they were to leave from me—a tear spilling from the rim of my eyelid, a voice forced through my lips—I know they are separate. But how could I explain that? How can I convince anyone of these things I do not feel? 

*

Before the bodies of so many are the faces. Anonymous and undistinguishable. Silenced, they stare—small hints of desire discouraging the mind to blink—eyes devour everything. Everything on the surface. Our core we keep. Our textures are hidden, swallowed, buried by us, for us alone to have. They know nothing substantial. And I stand, unwavering, in fear. Beside myself, I watch, without appearing reacted. I see through myself, looking outwards at the faces I confront who mirror some other, until the space is crowded with familiarity and everyone appears alike. This comforts them, assuming it confirms a sense of belonging, but it terrifies me. The multiplicity of sameness shocks me silent; clones make me claustrophobic, make me question whether my identity has been lost in the mix. Still, before them, is me panicked by aloneness. Lips inexplicably sewn, words forced inside, sounds buried beneath my tongue. But wait!, my mouth tries to pull loose. All I need is blindness: eyes bedded, sight drenched in sleep, breathing behind darkness, dreams devoid of tone, life denied color, the black face of reality. 

We were not identical. But we were each other. Somewhere we were more similar than not. And we were rewarded with the ease of loving one another. Effortlessly, entirely. Without pause to question otherwise, like all lovers do at some point and for too long. Lovers who will be, always, placed to the side. Even on top, they will only be an ornament—their greatest victory, and they pretend to be proud. They believe they are, too numb now to know, yet if only they stepped back and saw how debased they have become, they the champions of desire. 

We weren’t failures though. Unlike lovers, we loved. Even by one another’s side, our love stayed within, eating away at the trivial pleasures our hearts could ever think to attain. We were unlike the rest. And tried to protect ourselves from them—knowing we had been born by fate, into an unusual undertaking. Never asking anyone but ourselves, whether as hours melded into time, we were exploding into ecstasy. Feeling our feelings only as we thought them, we had no chance to choose otherwise, and so we were made to feel always—never able to pull our heads up from thought. Our bodies never warned us of anything. The mind controlled it all. 

It felt so different then, feeling without my body. It felt so good to be free. I knew no reason not to be alive. 

*

I apologized for being beautiful. Cried, I was sorry they saw me that way. That it hadn’t been my choice. That I hadn’t made myself the subject of their gaze. That I hadn’t asked to look like this. She hated me then. Hated that I was sincere and unaware of my power—a power I was distanced from, but carried with me everywhere. 

"We are different," she said. "I will have other things, too." 

"You do have other things," I pleaded. "You know things. I just see and react to them. You’re intellectual, I’m insightful. No one is convinced by anything I share. Everyone trusts you. Please, please, don’t ever not love me."

She’d take me in her arms, whispering, stop pretending to be the victim. "Stop pretending" tangled in my hair. Until I finally cut it. A razor to my scalp. 

*

Looking into the mirror, I saw someone else. I saw myself changed. 

"You’re just skinnier. But it’s still you in those bones." 

"No, I feel I am someone else, someone other." 

"You feel hungry." 

And my parents, loud and shouting through my door, "We don’t want to see you until you look like yourself. What are you trying to do, kill yourself too?"

*

They thought they could replace her with another child. And so a baby was born in denial of what had been. 

“Human beings are not pets,” I argued. “You can’t bury them one day and replace them the next. She wasn’t a dog, Dad.” 

"I won’t have you speak of her in this house." 

“But she is your daughter.” 

"Not another word." 

“Dad, please, she is me.” 

"You, leave here at once!"

“Don’t get rid of us.” 

As I went running out the door, I never asked for anything other than not to be forgotten. “Don’t forget Dad, don’t make yourself.”

*

Strangers would ask me if we looked alike. No, I’d say, remembering her face its roundness and luminosity contrasting my angles and mystique or the picture in The Herald of us behind our lemonade stand, the summer hours spent serving smiles and sweets in the sun, "The Seaside Sisters" was the caption and became our title. "Oh, you were the other type of twins." We were the same. I would wonder in disagreement, how appearance held any significance. I never came close to an answer. I never thought in those terms. 

I miss us very much. I miss us. Where are you now, if not within me? I sense your presence most now, which feels like always.