My sister     reads my                             poetry,

Says she                  understands            it like it is her          own

Mirror flame           who lived my          childhood

From the     bottom of a wooden bunk          bed

Out of body experience      to witness-

Myself through her                     eyes

Witness       herself though        mine,

Feature                    artist,   guest            star

She reaches             from across             carpeted bedroom

Grown         hand,   childhood fingers,   finds me, and we are one

And when   we   sit in coffee shops,

Her              eyes are       the same ones

That stared  at me from  across the    dinner table

We have                  learned        to     speak

In blinks                  and             glances

Wordlessly, she               knows

When I feel my fathers rage                   rising

I know         when she     senses

Our mothers                                    depression

The way it   laps at our feet

Like the                   gentle waves of wind          blown          lakes

My sister                 has heard my mother

Scream        at me in the             kitchen

While she sat          immobilized

On the couch, silent   like the ghosts of our         home

My sister has   peered up at            me

From that    bottom bunk in the             night

Asked me if we could                    run away together

My sister     has               found me

In the   bathroom                at                 2am

Mid binge,  a knife                                 in hand

To    cut               open                        packages of food

The only person                  on earth

To                ever catch    me   in     the               act

Reach hand out,      take it,  or    slap it away

We              have done    this

For              each other again              and again

Mutations,   versions of each-                    

olive    branch         blowing                   in     wind

Screams      of     children who had    no one

But  each other                           as witnesses

My sister     reads    my                           poetry,            

And perhaps            it is as if     it was written          just for her

Autobiography,       outside perspective             on your own life,

Twisted,                  different,     but somehow,

Exactly                    the                           same