Jami Patterson | + Follow Poet |
Dramatic Verse | + Fav Poem | Comment | Email | Print |

The Separate Leaves

The clock, a low and humming, silent thing,
Stands guard upon the desk. The house is still.
A single streak of moonlight seems to bring 
A dusty silver to the windowsill.
We lie on separate beds, a silent space
That feels a hundred miles, or none at all.
Two mirrored shapes, with shadows on each face,
Held by the same deep silence of the hall.

KITTY:
(A whisper, barely heard above the hum)
Do you ever feel it? The pull to be 
A single person? To be more than some 
Reflection you must wear for all to see?
We walk in step. We finish every thought.
I look at you and wonder who I am.

SISSER:
(Her voice, a soft, familiar, quiet sigh)
I do. I feel it every single day.
They look at us and see a single eye,
A singular perfection, come what may.
But in this dark, in this sweet, quiet hour,
I think of us as two small, growing trees,
Whose roots are tangled, sharing sun and power,
But reaching for the light in different leaves.

KITTY:
I had a dream that you were not a twin.
That you just lived a quiet, lonely life.
You didn't need to try so hard to win
Your own small space away from all the strife.
It was so strange. You didn't smile like me.
Your hair was longer. Just a different light.
And I was... I was free. I was just me.

SISSER:
I know that dream. I have that one at night.
But then I wake, and the first thing I see
Is your dear face, the moonlight on your hair.
And in that glance, I'm home. It's hard to be
Just one. But it's so lonely over there.
We're not the same. They just don't understand.
I know the fears inside your heart, my own,
And I will hold them, sister, in my hand.
You're never free. But you are not alone.

The moonlight shifts. A single, tear-filled sigh.
The stillness holds their whispered, midnight plea.
Two separate souls beneath a single sky,
But tangled roots of one identity.

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