The oldest one has set the bar -
Brown eyes, brown hair, natural tan,
Teeth that look just the way teeth should with no aid from metal or NASA-patented plastics.
Kappa Alpha Theta, college homecoming queen,
Following in the footsteps of our parents,
To someday hand out bottles of pills with her God-given smile and white coat to match.
I know she's not perfect, but I like to pretend.

Then there's me.

Then the next youngest,
Long brown hair, massive brown eyes, pale skin with the occasional freckle.
Her awkward phase - back brace, teeth brace, allergies, inhaler, tall and gangly -
paid off in the best way.
She wears her high heels to high school and looks straight off the runway.
She wears her pointe shoes and unfolds like a plant growing in fast-motion.
She sits at the table and draws and eats nothing but carbs and still looks made of sticks.
She wants to be a cartoonist, people tell her to be a model, a ballerina,
Our mother insists she's far too brilliant.

Then the baby.
Thin blonde hair, blue-grey eyes with a ring on the outside, grey skin when she's tired.
As Dad says: the printer ran out of ink.
She's beautiful like the rest, of course, but
she's not finished yet, still learning that her peers are generally wrong.
She frets and worries, but she listens to the music I tell her to,
and her expensive pockets have less and less rhinestones.
I tell her not to hug me so much when I come home,
But it's fine. I'm proud of her.
Someday she'll stop screaming at our mother and realize what she has to look forward to.