They say I had a [[twin]].They said she was identical, but we’re anything but.
I shouldn’t know that, because she’s dead, but [[I do]]. I know because I still see her—in the corner of my eye, staring back from the mirror, stalking my every move.
She wants to reclaim her life, the one I [[stole]] from her. I’d call her a ghost but ghosts can’t [[hurt]] you.She’d be everything I wasn’t. Long hair, soft smiles, dressed in skirts, dresses, whatever my mother wanted her to be, proud of her femininity.
She’d be the perfect girl, my mother croons.
I don’t say anything because it’s [[true]]. I would know because I sure as hell am not one.
A girl, that is.
Instead, I’m a ticking time bomb in baggy clothes, years of confusion and resentment and doing my own thing, damn the [[consequences->lost chances]]. My twin haunts me with her unfulfilled womanhood.
Something I've never wanted. Something that was pushed onto me.
She’s my [[gender ghost]].Sometimes I fantasize that I'm an only child.
“But you are one,” people laugh.
I beg to differ. My twin is living (undead?) proof of my blood ties.
She torments me, the way I present myself, the way I reject femininity like it’s suffocating me (because [[it is]]). It gets so bad sometimes, I wish I was the one who killed her when I had the chance.
Eaten her in the womb.
Can hate blossom before one is conscious?
Before I even had [[teeth->i]]?She tried to [[choke->once]] me in my sleep, once. I woke up sweating, panting for air in twisted bedsheets, fingerprints bruised and branded into my neck.
I woke up to her [[laugh]].The sensation haunted me. Her fingers were so gentle as they pressed down, down, down against my neck. So gentle that I was lucky to wake up at all.
I’m afraid she’ll [[try again]].
Until I die, or let her take over from where I left off.
Live her life as the perfect girl in my [[body->u]].I’m armed, this time.
I hold my breath and the kitchen knife in my hand, waiting for [[her->o]].
She [[never->m]] comes.
[[...->her]]I'd be damned if I ever [[let->body]] her.
[[...->teeth]]She hasn't tried to kill me again, as far as I know.
She only [[haunts]].I'm still afraid of [[her->my]].But it won't stop me from living.
From being me.
THE END.[[...->never]]Sometimes I still see her as I look away from my reflection. Admiring a blouse in the 'women's section' of clothing. On a date through a cafe window.
Sometimes I still dream of bloody nails and painted lips, the sensation of fingers wrapping around my neck, gentle and full of malice.
But only [[sometimes]].