She was my sister

She was my sister
When we were kids
She pushed me down icy hills,
Into parked cars
Blood dripped on white mounds of snow
Built with tiny hands
But she was my sister
When I would cry
Shhhh she'd say, it's not that bad.
When we wore matching clothes
Jumpers and knee high socks to school
Church to cover up hatred
And my sister,
She bore no disguises
She harbored it, but it permeated her
My sister with this burden
Tied inside of her like a carefully woven ribbon
Things were normal..
The way we lived,
The things we did
The teenage rebellion that caused us to sneak sandaled boys into our windows
Did she know I looked up to her when she hated herself?
That the boys thought she was pretty,
With her long legs and her careless hair?
She was my sister when she dropped out of college,
And went to live with an older man,
With depression and an agenda to die
When she shaved her head one Easter Sunday
When she ran out of medication and the room spun,
Amidst cigarette smoke and cable TV
She knew I was her sister on her wedding day,
With a baby in her stomach and Mom and Dad shaking their heads beside me
When we slept on the pull out sofa,
The night our mother died..
And sneaked cigarettes in the 68' Mustang
When her son was born with a hole in his heart
When she divorced her husband,
And introduced me to Charlie
But I wasn't her sister on her second wedding day..
For the birth of her second child
And now she sits in a hospital room
A baby ripped out of her stomach
A wound she will soon run her fingers across
Remembering the jagged edges of the surgeon's knife
I long to be her sister again
To trace the wounds that haven't healed,
And seal the open seams