accidental tourist – Annette Kalandros

I entered life an accidental tourist.

My mother’s body served an eviction notice,

But I ignored it and burrowed deeper

Into placental warmth.

My twin, however, weaker,

Entered the world a clotted, bloody,

Gelatinous mess on the white tile

Of a bathroom floor.

The doctor told the man,

Who wasn’t really my father

But thought himself to be,

There was still a heartbeat,

Still a baby left. 

I felt the absence of my twin,

the lack of another’s heart

beating a rhythm to match my own,

racing toward emergence, light, life, breath.

A ghost-like memory I carried with me

Always– Even when I, who survived

By claiming squatter’s right

To my mother’s uterus

As it tried to evict me

And who had never been told

Of my twin’s existence, would

Turn in childhood play and talk

To my twin sister.

My mother asking to whom I talked

And I answering—My…