there is something so lonely about being the surviving twin
I sit in my room. sad. all the time. it feels like half of my heart and soul have been missing since the day I was born. it feels like there's an outline of a full heart in my chest but wind blows through the empty half and the half that's still in me shivers.
and my mom lost her brother too. I wonder if she felt this the same or even worse since her's lived until he was 22. I wonder if he hangs around the empty half of her heart waiting until they meet again. I wonder if mine hangs around the empty half of my heart wondering the same.
I stare in the mirror, and I imagine my own face to be my twin brothers. I know there should be 2 copies of my face in the world but there's only 1. I know my parents didn't even tell me that I didn't eat my twin in utero and that there was an accident and a whole baby's body to cremate until now, when I'm 18. I don't know what's worse. I think I would have preferred to believe I just ate him. that would mean I didn't really know him so I never lost something
but I did. though we weren't quite conscious yet, it was his hands against mine for 8 months and it was us being twins and fighting each other in utero. and it was my parents looking for 2 sets of hands and 20 little fingers in the ultrasounds. and it was a baby shower for 2 babies. and then something bad happened. and we only had 1
sometimes I imagine as I look in the mirror that my brother is on the other side, looking into the mirror with me, and my dead uncle takes care of him, and he's staring, waiting from the other side of the mirror, I hope wanting to be with me as much as I want to be with him. there's a hole in my heart that belongs to my brother and it will never be filled.
my mom tells me I look like her dead brother. maybe one of my own kids will look like my dead brother too.
would I even recognize him?
