I wrote chills on your spine in little silver letters,
calligraphy for the cold blooded. In the morning your
words hit my shoulders. Chapters in your brightly colored
promise book, like children underneath a foggy green mess
of trees and faux wilderness, exchanging Foxfire without
understanding what it means.

If I was too complicated, if I reminded you of him, if I should be
ashamed for realizing what I missed--I am a grown up now.

I'm supposed to be content in my smaller waist, in my designer clothes,
in my intellectual superiority; yeah, in those later years my IQ
was like a ghost between us, a haunting construction of hard fanged
numbers and higher scores on the verbal. My vocabulary was a hated
barrier to self-medicate and dissolve in white clouds. I drove my car into
the ocean and you were already there, trying not to drown in me.

I have to wonder what it was like to be the best friend, offering explanations
and apologetic smiles to anyone and everyone. And now I'm not young
enough where I can be forgiven for my low-slung jeans, my fierce physical
ownership of everything and everyone, you called it my look at me vibe in
printed little camisoles and big black bitch boots, my strangely colored hair.

I would not have wanted to love me at fourteen, but you did it anyway.

And none of the nice girls are going to ignore my witchcraft, now that I'm
old enough to appreciate them. This is what happens when you grow up
English Ivy, when you are a devourer, can't help consuming everyone & everything,
including the only one who understands. And now I can comprehend my own
psychosis.

Don't worry, I really do understand.
I'm never going to have sisters again.