:: Stealing Beauty ::

My sister drew her lithe, dancer's body up to her full height and stood beside me in front of the mirror.
"I really look like you," she mused, tilting her head at an angle, looking at her, at us, with a curious detachment.
I ran a brush through her hair, feeling the kinks that have knotted their way into her almost-straight locks, and I smiled at our reflection. She grinned back at me - on reflex - and I felt a surge of emotions: love, protectiveness, envy, fear.

Look like me, but don't be like me. Share my toothy smile, but not the plastic candor underneath. Share the same long-legged stride, but walk with the grace that I could never master. Share the way my eyes crinkle when I laugh, but not how my mind sinks into dark injuries. Share all the good things that I can show you, and be better than all the bad things that I have unwittingly adopted. Because your innocence is your power.

And so we stood together and smiled the identical, bright-eyed smile that make us sisters. And in a cruel moment of self-torment: if I had you, would you look like us too?

***

Boredom at work is beating down on me like a merciless sun. I can't run away. I'm being scorched, and I'm slowly drying up.