gray rock sisters

magnificent favorites & shameless disappointments

unedited

m,

i've written too many drafts of letters to you, hoping to perfect at least one. hoping that somehow, there is a logical, sensible, and cohesive way to present what happened, what you did, what it made me feel, and what it means for us. but i believe that path doesn't exist.

i am uncertain where to begin. do i punch you right where it hurts? do i start at 8? 12? maybe 14? do i begin where the fire is or where the ashes are?

i've tried and failed to make sense of everything. i tried and failed to transform the shame, pain, confusion, and disgust into something beautiful, or at least something tolerable. but i cannot because that then, would be lying. there was nothing poetic about us. nothing worth writing about. there was you and i and the unconquerable distance between us.

i wonder if you knew it in your bones like i did. if you knew i'd leave you if it was the last thing i did. did you?

i reckon you couldn't have predicted it. i was the convenient child, the balance bringer, the one who accompanied you to grocery shopping and bills payment, who got straight lines of 9, who you depended on to be your pride; i'd never do such a dishonorable thing, right? we had our problems, sure, but doesn't every family? you never thought i had it in me to leave because you were used to the me who became whatever was missing, who took on the chore nobody else wanted. you'd know better than anyone that that whole act only lasts so long before the actress gets exhausted, rebels, and leaves forever. you'd know better than anyone else.

tell me this, m, since you're great at telling me to do things. how do i write about anything else other than the anger? every time my fingers brush across the keyboard, they gravitate towards the same letters, desperate to communicate the same thing.

you hurt me. did you know that?
why, why, why? give me a reason.

there is a lot i'd give up to understand your perspective. did you mean to hurt me? did it hurt you when you did? did you do it because i deserved it? did i deserve it at all? there are a million questions i want to ask. maybe it's pointless to know the answers, but i'm terrified that it is my last resort. i have to know it wasn't all for nothing. i have to know you had a purpose in inflicting so much hurt. was it to make me tough? did the wreck in her develop an inherent urge in you to put your hands on me? did all the silence his absence left nurture a distaste for the quiet so now you always have to fill the space? what was it that i did to deserve it? what is it i can do to avoid it?

you believe love could be born out of responsibility. that if one stayed true to their duties long enough, they'd eventually fall in love with them. i, on the other hand, believe no love can ever flourish from obligation. the reverse, i think, can be true. when one loves, commitment follows.

as i write this, i wonder if i wanted your love or your adoration more. you claimed to love us all equally, but if that was true, then why didn't it show up for me as often? i have never been your favorite from the very start of it all. i've taken it upon myself to figure out why, so that i can change whatever is so unlikeable about me and stray away from being bearable to enjoyable. god, i feel sorry for younger me and how much she tried to make you like her because no matter who i turned into, i could never seem to embody the person you wanted.

i've been the academic, the rebel, the maid, the ghost, and tried just about everything in between. i just couldn't get to the top of your list and i hate to admit it, but to this day, i am still frustrated that i never fully understood what i did wrong.

what was it about me that made me so unlovable to you?

i look at the others and for a moment, all i see is everything i'm not and everything you could love. m, i'm done pondering. tell me why i was never your favorite. could i have done something about it? why couldn't you care for me the way you did for them? why did you let them get away with such terrible, terrible things, yet give me the lecture of a lifetime because of one small mistake? why do you always defend and find excuses for them while you stood as my accuser? i don't fucking get it. so help me here, help me understand why the fuck you could love them but not me?

i told myself i wouldn't get angry, but who am i trying to fool? i could never turn my back on the only thing that kept me going. is that even possible? to shed the skin you wore out of necessity and still find something delightful and notable inside? resent forced me to straighten my back instead of cowering in fear, but when all is said and done, what is left of me aside from the rage?

it mortifies me to recognize you in the mirror. i swore i'd never be like you and i fight every goddamned day to keep that promise. if there was a way to survive you without becoming you, i do not know it.

a