One (Sarah Crossan)

What is Ugly?

I’ve been in enough hospital wards to have seen horrors:

a kid with his face melted down one side,

a woman with her nose ripped off and ears hanging loose

like strips of bacon.

That’s what people call ugly.

Not that I would.

I’ve learned to be less cruel than that.

But I know what Tippi means.

People find us grotesque,

especially from a distance,

when they see us as a whole,

the way our bodies are distinctly two

then merge,

suddenly,

at the waist.

But if you took a photograph of us, head and shoulders only,

then showed it to everyone you met,

the only thing people would notice is that we are

twins,

my hair to the shoulders,

Tippi’s a little shorter,

both of us with pixie noses

and perfectly peaked eyebrows.

It’s true to say we’re different.

But ugly?

Come on.

Give us a break.