Sisters

I miss things

Things that sometimes I'm not sure I ever even had.

Things like the feeling of my mother's hand sweeping the side of my face affectionately

Or the sound of her singing in the kitchen while she made breakfast on Sunday mornings.

I feel lonely for places I've never been, memories I haven't yet made, and things that I wonder sometimes if I'll ever get the chance to do.

I heard once that family is just a bunch of people who all feel lonesome for the same imaginary place

But I don't feel that companionship with the people who share my blood type 

Or the shape of my nose

Or the scars from my childhood

I don't believe we all miss the same imaginary place

We're more like old war buddies

Who have in common the flashbacks, the nightmares, the twitches and the triggers from the battles we endured together

We're all made sick by the same smells, the same sounds, the same words that somehow make our eyes sting with the threat of tears, even if they're uttered innocently by themselves.

We have the same ghosts of the same deaths behind our eyes, 

And I tell myself that's the reason why we can't look at each other for too long, we can't breath the same air for too much time

It's too personal, 

Too close to all the shared tender spots in our history

We all know too much.

So we walk off and make our own lives, and tell our own haunted accounts of what happened back then

And when we're brought together, by whatever life circumstance it ends up being, we're no more than polite to each other, stepping lightly around the land mine riddled scenery of each other's hearts

Carefully sticking to the weather, how's work, kids are getting big

And then walking off before anyone remembers and brings up the things we all did together, and to each other

To survive.