The Art of Identity

The words cease to resonate, not my voice's fault nor the walls, it is the absence of my yang, sister self; emerging, new world unsheathing its unease: there were two cries of joy. Reverberation or affirmation, and was there ever a difference in the sando shops where we stole tuna mayo onigiri, or in the hospital, where we were no longer wide-eyed and buck-toothed, and you learned your husband was infertile; you hadn’t seen your reflection in years, no matter how much I tried to see mine, so in the bridges where the futatsu dirty faced bandits used to roam; one on the side where the stars could greet her and the other facing the earth and its restraints, only tremors from our lips, identical tones; I was your shadow, you, the moon. Now; in the barren cadence of one-half of a voice, with her half message, the hitotsu phantom warrior cuffed herself to the hand-made robes and teary-eyed skies of her memories.