When you go
you take a piece of me,
and yet I am complete
more replete than I have ever been,
a fuller person than the one you would have known or seen,
I am myself, at last,
no longer victim to our complicated past,
and as we part of course there will be sorrow
for you it ends
for me I will step forward to tomorrow

living their first time too.
expecting they know everything.  
sweet and sour at the same time.
painful, not living up to their dreams.
i’ll try my best, for both of you, for everything you did and everything you couldn’t do.

His hands seemed almost bizarre on the fork.
How can something so large handle something so small?
Did my mother's hand fit into his at all?
I wondered as he chewed up the dead pork.

"It does not taste right." He says as he takes another bite.
The blood is foaming from his open mouth.
"It is half-cooked and still fresh; the animal still tries.
to outrun his flesh. It is hard to bite and dry."

He tries to say as he swallows, even as it rots
He keeps just eating more. Then he slams the fork.
chants curses that would put a priest inside the morgue
I listen to him call God as I ponder about loving

In the black and white pictures, it existed.
where my mother's eyes still smiled
where her movements were not rehearsed
where she didn't have to keep the glass half full so it wouldn't burst

I see her in my reflection: a sad-eyed girl.
with a table filled with savory and sweet
But Mother, do we share this quiet rage when we eat?
You wish you could replace his head on the plate?

Mother, are you a good actress?
Do you keep knives under your dress?
Does your mind create images?
Where you pay off all the witnesses.

"Will you ever feed me something other than your tears?"
He shouts as he slams his fists.
and his hands make sounds
as loud as war bombs

We learned when to be quiet.
when to soak up all the silence
But, Mother, in your mind, is he still the head of the table?
Or just a head on the plate?

I never understood my mother.
She used to rest with a book in her hands.
She read novels about tragedies and stolen lands.
Skin-to-skin with my father

Why does she read books about fights and wars?
At her feet lived a real-life Hoplite man.
Already thinking about his phalanx plan.
How to conquer or claim forbidden lands

He never understood my mother.
Why bother with peaceful streams?
When in battle, steel swords gleam.
Crimson blood and gunshot dreams

Me on my couch with my Greek tragedies
At my heels rests my warrior, Achilles.
In his mind, he builds monasteries.
While I read about the conquered seas

I feel like my mother understood the thunder.
Whenever he had a moment with my father,
Maybe he had a glimpse of peace.
While he looked up at my mother's face

She is a sculptor, carefully molding
And just as precisely, she is folding.
Digs through the earth in search of sapphire eyes
Rips the wheat for hair, just like she desires.
When it finally speaks, the voice is weak.
"Breathe life in me; feelings are what I seek."
Oh, how perfect her strangest creation!
Broken fragments of imagination.

"You’re my blank page, I can fill with stories."
"The low whisper to hush all my worries"
First, she teaches it to dance, then how to
Sing, shows the color of the sky is blue.
Secondly, she shows the earth and the dead.
Rotting in the ground below, blood is red.
Also, color of love: never worry.
Learn to appreciate all the beauty.

On the third day, it longs to be free now.
Searching the dark, it was shown for a way out.
It screams, "I don’t belong to anyone."
"I am free as birds that fly toward dawn."
"I made you, showed you the world; stay faithful.
There’s no breaking free; don’t be ungrateful."
Now it sneaks out at night through the back door.
Freedom and chains are falling to the floor.

She is like flowing rivers, tracing maps.
can even travel seven continents
sculpts her own path with wood and bleeding hands
knows that there are harmless and harmful plants
She wants to stick her hand in them to feel.
thinks it would be nice after it to heal
Still now the blood drops, the footsteps grow strong.
She is forced back into her hole by bond.

For a sculptor loves its creation dearly.
just wants to tweak and work on it daily
Shall the potter be regarded as the clay too?
In her road for discovery, did she grow?
Can she let go of what she created?
Or clip its wings and lock all the cages?
My dear sculptor, let it go; let her roam.
She might just be the future's next grindstone.

As God, doubtful of her own creation
What if what her hand makes can conquer nations?
Does it not deserve to sculpt just as she?
To shake like earthquakes, scream like a banshee.
Let her go, let her go, it echoes now.
She stands back, no longer a sculptor but a guide.
The chisel drops from her shaking hand.
as the marble moves and bows her head.

I live inside walls of breeze blocks,
Concrete and cinder halls.
My enemies live on the other side.
We meet sometimes—
to negotiate cease-fires
between cigarette breaks.

Still, while he offers peace,
he sets up artillery.
I ready my firearm.
She rings the bomb alarm.
The Luftwaffe ricochets—
while he prays...

He is more religion than a man.
She, more hurricane than a woman.
And I—something like a child.
Only the old and the unkind
keep count: forty-three, forty-four—
we are still at war.

After the cigarette burned out
The house burned down.
They say, "Child, take this to the grave."
If you made it out alive from the battle of Crete
Parents, I survived the friendly fire.
While you bombarded, I built the Roman Empire.

I've never felt second best,
Being a twin, you get asked a lot of questions:
"Who's older?"
"Who's smarter?"
"Who's the favorite?"
But you never gave into them:
"They were born at the same time"
"They both have straight A's"
"I love them both so much"
What's changed?

I've learned that I'm younger,
Only by a second—a moment,
My birth certificate bears a different time,
Yet we still tell people we're the same age
Because the difference doesn't define us.

Now I'm starting to fail my classes,
Not a single A to my name anymore.
You must think of her as the smarter one,
While I'm the one who can't be bothered:
No homework, no studying, no perfect SAT score.
Have things changed because you've finally chosen a favorite?
And of course, it's her.

I've grown to hate myself,
So it's not surprising you do too.
You see yourself in me and loathe it,
Support no longer feels like support
Because you can't imagine I'd be anything like you:
Of course I'm not sad,
Or anxious enough to pass out,
Of course I'm faking when I'm throwing up
So you'll send me to school.

But when she wants to stay home,
You shower her with love,
Buy her favorite foods,
While you'd take mine away to keep me thin.

When I want to disappear,
I'm still second best.
You'll cry, but still yell,
Making me feel guilty for wanting you to care.

I'll keep my head down—float with the majority,
And try to live with being second priority.
But know that I am more than your reflection;
More than a twin, more than second best.
I am my own person, worthy of love,
Even if you can't see it yet.

Nothing is not pain, and somehow not as simple as
being no more than nothing would explain.

Vaguely showing signs of love
Tamely cooking up
meals of modesty
bravely ******* up
priorities, honestly
I though for a time
those emotional commodities were none existent
Reminiscent of nothing.
I didn't know of loving
and my weekly rations of half arsed hugging
didn't feed an appetite for much more than
pokemon cards and chicken nuggets.

What child would grow in a void of the unknown
to love the people who left them
alone and longing
whilst furnishings and trinkets they bring in
as if to say that
a child is no more worth a thought than
the millionth handbag or lamp shade brought.
And to that child these things are nothing.
Nothing in love and nothing in family
and yet more worthy of attention and affection than them,
but that's fine.
Such consistent rejection had some effects on me
and I found my joy in toys and confectioneries.

To know the familiar face of nothing
and paint on that blank canvass a picture of something
easier to define for the lack of light
and in some morbid way, that may be my blessing;
A comprehensive and profound understanding of the things I'm missing.