Status Updates From What I'd Rather Not Think A...

My mother said that her son had died of a sickness, as if he hadn’t chosen to leave us. I knew that depression was a sickness. Maybe it was the depression that sent him into the water. It had told my brother that he wasn’t the one who was sick but life was. Being the one who leaves guarantees that you won’t be the one who is left. My mother has never been left. She was gone long before I was born.

I acted all giggly and coy but on my way downstairs, I wished his building would collapse so I could disappear under the rubble.

If you tell yourself, I’m going to remember this moment for the rest of my life, then you will remember it. You have to focus on your thoughts while simultaneously absorbing everything around you but if you do this, then the moment will stay with you forever, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

The fact that we weren't identical was something I'd long considered a handicap, a consequence of our premature birth, even once I understood the difference between identical and fraternal twins. We could have grown even closer in that ninth month.