I think about what it is like in the womb.
We shared a womb once. We must have.
The womb is not quiet. It is filled with the roar of the body, the rushing of blood, the thudding of a heartbeat. Of two. Of three.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
There are no memories but there are feelings. Motions.
Kicking feet.
Clenching fists.
Gnashing gums.
Hunger.
Only ever hunger. No fussing in the womb. No laughing. Only hunger.
And pain. The pain of growth—do you remember growing pains? When your bones ached from the effort taken to stretch, to pull themselves apart?
How quickly we grow in the womb.
It must hurt.
Did we hurt together?
Did we reach out for one another in the roaring silence before ears and eyes and words?
I want to believe that we did.
But I look at her and I know that we did not.
Perhaps I reached. But she spurned.
She likes it when she's the last one left. She likes closing up. She likes the cavernous hallways of stark white tile—no warmth like the womb, no rushing blood—and the twist of the key in the lock.
Twist of a knife.
I watch from the driver's seat. Hands twist the steering wheel.
My face.
My name.
We must have shared a womb.
We share it now.
A womb.
A world.
Twins sometimes eat each other in the womb
When there isn't enough food to go around.
She's eating me.
And I'm hungry.
I put a cloth mask on my face
(it hugs my face it is close like the womb)
and go to meet her in the dark red restaurant in the stark white hallway of the big concrete box.
"My name is Sunset and I'll be your server today."
She ate my voice too.
I point to the menu and she smiles
(she ate my smile)
and she brings me a plate of raw fish and rice.
"Enjoy your meal."
I do.
It is not slippery. It is mealy. It is soft and juicy and mild like a pear but there is salt where a pear is sweet.
I slip the pink under my cloth mask and I chew and I watch her.
She tucks her hair behind her ear
(she ate it she ate my hair)
while she talks and scribbles in her little notepad and whisks away dishes and smiles.
I swallow and I watch her.
And I think
(I could eat her back)
that maybe
(I could eat her up I could retake it all and she could be the vanishing twin)
I will wait for her to leave
(sticky and mealy)
twist the key in the lock
(eat her smile)
and tell her about how she ate my life up in one bite
(eat her hair)
and see if she will give it back.
I raise my hand and she brings me the check.
"Have a good night."
I nod.
I leave the concrete box and I sit on a concrete bench.
I think I am small because of all the things she ate. I sit and I wait and I am just like the tall skinny bushes behind me. Outside the cone of yellow light.
And when she leaves it is so easy to sneak up and grab her
and choke her
and choke her
"Stop
Who are you
Who
Let me go
Let
Stop
Stop"
and a wheeze and she is limp in my arms.
I lower her to the sidewalk and I bring my car around and I put her in the backseat. She is breathing
(she ate my breaths all of them gobbled them up)
slow and thin but that's okay.
She is breathing.
I tie her hands with bungee.
I tape over her mouth.
Someone once told me to keep these things in the trunk of my car
(she ate them too I can't remember them can't remember who told me that)
and for the first time I'm thankful.
There is no one here because she likes to be alone, likes to be the last one left, and so I cut across the parking lot without caring for the thick white lines painted into a sprawling labyrinth.
I drive her home.
My home.
Her home.
Our home.
Our womb.
I lay her out on the carpet and I look at her really look.
She is beautiful. With tan skin and shiny hair in loose curls and a softness in her cheeks that I wanted to hold
(wanted to eat)
and stroke and kiss and keep.
I look at her until she wakes up.
She is surprised.
I watch her put the pieces together inside her mind. I can see it in her eyes, the way they flick nervously to and fro, across my face, my ratty hair, my pale cheeks and thin lips.
I think she sees it.
She sees that she has eaten me.
Because she doesn't cry. She should have cried. But there were no tears
(not yet)
only realization.
She mumbles something.
I peel back the duct tape
(it sticks to her it eats her skin)
and let her speak.
"I'm sorry."
I nod.
"We should talk about this, we can fix this."
I only stare at her.
"I didn't know."
I blink.
"Not for sure."
Beat.
Beat.
"I can fix it. I have ways to—"
But I cover her mouth before she can finish.
At first she is afraid, and I think she might cry, but she only stares up at me.
She can't look away.
I pick up the kitchen knife and hold a lock of her hair in my hand and slice it off. She winces like I cut her and not her hair.
Her hair tastes of nothing but I chew it and I swallow and I feel the prickly feeling of it expanding in my throat.
Her eyes change.
She understands.
She is not cold like the fish.
But she is soft and mealy and mild.