My sisters do not look at me as much as I look at them.
She thinks that I am my mother’s favorite but they are each other’s favorite and I have nobody if not my mother. But my mother does not listen to me, so in reality, I truly have nobody.
My elder sister will not know how I make my fried rice. She will not know about my 6th grade unrequited love, about my favorite authors, and my talents. She will not know.
But I will know her like the back of my hand; I know how she loves watching true crime, I know how much she adores dogs and how particular she is about her stuff and I will take all of this to the grave.
(I do not want to, I think, but I feel more than that.)
I know how she’s still hungry after, in a fight with mother, she says she isn’t.
I know she is so I will stay behind and eat a little bit slower. I’ll whisper to mom hushedly, “I’ll wipe the table and wash the dishes” to get her off my back, even if I don’t want to, but because I want my sister to eat.
I see her and she doesn’t see me. Or, she does see me but she doesn’t understand me. She looks at me like I’m darkness looming through her and she looks at me like I’ve somehow ruined her life and I don’t know what I’ve done.
I haven’t done anything but it’s almost like I’ve died in my mother’s womb, and I am now just a ghost haunting them for when I speak they respond but their arms dig past my heart and instead of feeling through me, they feel past me.
I’m here and they’re choosing to ignore me.
I’m here and it’s like I’ve never been.
I stand on my right foot and contort my body into a woman when I am barely a teenager, and I would do so again and again just for her to see me.
I would tear my body in half for her to see me for me.
I am afraid that she will only do so when my body has long decomposed in its casket and she receives my folder of files just like this one, detailing how I’ve felt.
Shivers may pass through her veins, and instead of satisfaction, she will feel guilt. She will feel rotten and disgusting. I do not want that.
I am torn into bits and pieces and my lungs have been removed and yet I am still breathing and I am already inexplicably dead when I feel shame for dying out of guilt for living.
