unfinished snippets

dead

Sometimes I forget my sister is real. Alive.
It's almost like eight years ago, we left, and she died. She died for a long time.

I was seven. I didn't have any way to communicate, so I made one.

I learned to write letters, to stamp them, and write her address on them in glittery pink gel pen, my chubby little fingers smudging the ink all over the envelope. I would get creative, sending her little drawings and decorating the outside of my letters.

I wonder how long she kept them before throwing them away. I wonder if she knows I still have every one of the letters she sent back.

Once I got a phone, my sister was suddenly alive again. Letters were outdated, so I decided we would text. But I never did. The option was there, so why didn't I take it?

She reached out a few times, but I never showed interest. After all, I had never needed her in my life before, so why would I need her now?

I followed her on social media, but it was like watching a strangers life through binoculars. Every once and a while, she would post a drawing of a girl with short curly hair. I wondered if she based it off of me—if my sister even remembered I was alive. After all, I was forgetting that she was.

She missed me grow up. Maybe I'm a little bitter about that.

It feels like I don't even have another sister. Yes, it's just the one, and our brother. It's the three of us, and it always has been, right?

She died, and my parents don't seem to realize that. They tell stories about her, tell me how she's doing at her new job, about how cute her new boyfriend is. I can't even register that they're talking about a real person.

We've seen each other. She visits at Christmas, and sometimes in the summer, when pay days have been good. Those are the days when she comes back to life.

Those are the days when I wake up before everyone else, when I tiptoe down the stairs and see her asleep on the couch. I have to pinch myself to make sure she's actually real.

One day she'll stop visiting for Christmas. And for summer. She'll die again. Maybe for good this time.

I remember when we moved away, I told her that I would miss her everyday. I think that's one of the biggest lies I've ever told.

7/5/2018
1:09am
(this has been eating away at me for so long it doesn't even feel real)