The Wrong Daughter

by Dandy Smith

There’s a special type of magic in being born to the same two people. Of growing up together. In knowing the blood that courses through my veins is the same as the blood that coursed through yours.

What I’m trying to say is, I miss you. Losing you is like a thick soot that has settled over every surface of my life. For the first few weeks after you died, I poured all my energy into trying to scrub that soot away. Desperate to erase the grief so I could breathe clean air again. Now, though, a year on, I realise it is not soot. It is glitter. It is every shining, sparkling moment I had with you, sprinkled all around me. Everywhere I look, I see you.

with everything that happened, it was easier to snip the thread than it was to sit and try to untangle it. I’m at peace with it now.

think you would want me to step out of your shadow and feel the sun on my skin. To forge a path all my own. Losing you has forced me to create a life that is bolder, braver and more vivid than the one I merely existed in before.