SWORDFERN
Rooted, I used to think.

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Purgatory - Sunday, Feb. 10, 2019
Day Fifteen - Saturday, Feb. 09, 2019
Day Fourteen - Saturday, Feb. 09, 2019
Day Thirteen - Thursday, Feb. 07, 2019
Atonement - Thursday, Feb. 07, 2019


2002-06-16 @ 10:35 p.m.
Why



I am a daughter and a sister. Somewhere in this lifetime, I became the 'good' daughter and my sister became the 'bad' daughter in the eyes of my father.

I'm not sure where it started. I was always the chubbier one. She'd go jogging with Dad in the mornings while I'd help Mom make breakfast. She recieved excellent grades when highschool came around. In response, I ventured within myself, half the time trying to be like her, half the time thinking I was a native child trapped in this white body and urban world.

Boys started to call her. I didn't have any male friends, and those calls ignited jealousy. Soon she grew curves and discovered fashion. As usual, I stayed square and undefined. So while she would go out on group dates in the evenings, I would wander up the creek to write in my diary and study the world in intimite detail.

I started highschool. My grades were good, even slightly better than hers. The teachers recognized my last name and put two-and-two together. But still, I grew no curves and no boys called. And still, I would go into the woods to gather salmon berries and attempt to weave cedar bark into baskets and bracelets.

She graduated and went to university. And then she grew thin. Something clicked inside her head; something turned sour. She came home at Thanksgiving and she had a safety pin holding her jeans in a size. The next time she was home, her legs were svelte in her now-baggy Umbro jogging shorts. I would run with her and admire how she flew like a gazelle over the pavement.

My parents grew worried: she was getting too thin. She moved home, and that's when Hell began.

She pasted pictures from magazines all over her walls. Calvin Klein models, Nike runners, sickly thin perfume ad women and Cosmo headlines obliterated the lilac walls in an insane mosaic. I couldn't go in there. It made me feel helpless.

We were driving to the train station one day, to pick up my aunt. It was summer - shorts weather. She sat beside me in the back of the Jetta, and all I could stare at were her thighs. They were thinner than her knees. Tears crept up in the corners of my eyes.

Soon after, something clicked in me. I followed her. I memorized the calorie content in foods and obsessed over recipes. I ate nothing but vegetables and fruit for weeks on end. Where she would eat nothing all day to indulge in ice cream at night, I gorged on vegetable matter constantly.

I grew thin. Thinner than my parents ever knew, as my square body alluded to strenth despite my wasted fat. My hands were the only part that became sickly. The became scaley and boney. My cheeks hollowed. I remember trying to fall asleep one night, but the pillow hurt my face.

The doctor ran hormone tests to find out why my periods had stopped. Mom came in with me and attested, "She's eating all day. I don't understand why the weight is falling off." I nodded in agreement.

University came for me. I got out of that house and away from my sister. I began to heal.

My sister is still fighting it. It has manifested into a different form now, but it is from the same confused root of insanity. The purple and yellow prescriptions are lined up on her dresser, and the collage of magazine photos grows.

Dad says cruel things to her. He hates that he can't control her eating. She has found her rebellion to his perfection. I grew strong again, and he compliments the girth of my biceps. When he drives her car, he throws the rearview-mirrow toy onto the driveway. When he borrows mine for a week, the toy is partnered with his parking tag. When I watch TV, he joins me. When she watches TV, she 'should be out getting fresh air'. And, oh yes, she sleeps all day and never MOVES.

It is really unfair. She will never be good enough for him.

Two daughters. We are the sun and the moon. In my fathers eyes, we are each paired with either lightness or darkness. I shine, shine shine, and she is always shrouded with empty blackness. She glows though, she is all silver, waxing and waning through my thoughts and my life.


Roots | Shoots