_/*Autonomy*/_

/I couldn't be there for your birth,/

/I hadn't been thought of,/

/or even considered,/

/someday I would be the momentary/

/disappointment, just another girl.../

/
/

/“Girls” they always said, /

/the phrase I remember most /

/from childhood, /

/when did we become separate?/

/When did we become
/

/Kelan,
/

/Shelby?/

/
/

/A thousand miles between us,/

/once that didn't even matter,/

/as I spent a thousand Saturdays/

/tied to the phone cord, /

/afraid to move/

/trying to make you laugh,/

/trying to make you see/

/that it was worth living.../

/when you were /

/visiting ghosts, /

/cliff diving into /

/the past, again and again and again/

/I was there to catch you/

/as you fell,/

/though sometimes I buckled /

/beneath the weight\/

/of shared memory/

/
/

/There was never anywhere/

/I would have rather been,/

/than there with you,/

/we were conjoined/

/as surely as twins,/

/although I wouldn't celebrate/

/your birthday for 2 more years.../

/
/

/Once you spent a million Sundays /

/trying to keep me from the razors edge,/

/from the deep end of the ocean,/

/from the call of my ribs, my bones, beautiful/

/beneath the skin, so close then,/

/to the surface,/

/You spent your youth,/

/trying to fix, what it took half a lifetime,/

/to break/

/Though your fingers bled/

/sometimes/

/from all that stitching/

/and no thimble to save you/

/and you wrote poems/

/in the blood.../

/always resourceful,/

/we were raised like pioneers./

...

written for my sister on her birthday. 12/19/09.