1.
that you became a stranger
hardened like a fossil in my gut,
heavy and haunting when I lie in bed darkly,
sleepless, wondering if you worried today,
what you ate, if you laughed

since i met you,
it has felt like i’m eating for two


2.
that I don’t know the names of my nephew’s
crushes or secrets or what he wants to be
when he grows up

he’s almost as old now as i was when you were
born, and though i don’t have a recent photo,
i imagine he looks too young for all that


3.
that you write like you talk and you talk like me
and i wish i hadn’t read you so many books
when you were young

because each time i read the letter you sent
before my wedding, i hear you saying goodbye,
which is to say, i really hear it,

recall the way the words sound thick in your
mouth, sticking in your teeth and cheeks,
round when they should be flat, soft when they
should be hard, thick like the way i talk, and i’m
trying to change my voice so i stop hearing
yours every time i open my mouth


4.
that i kept our last name even though there
wasn’t really any room left, even after getting
married, not for the bylines or the internet
searches (in fact, i hate the thought of being
found), but because it’s the only thing we share
now

and i hope you never get married or if you do,
you keep our name because i just can’t be
an anderson without you


5.
that i wished so hard for you,
begged to be a big sister,
wanted you so bad i hid all our parents’
sponges and condoms and whatever else
under my bed, prayed over them like totems,
did my homework and behaved

that i was sure we’d be best friends forever,
even though i hadn’t met you and, maybe, you’d
never even be born

my love for you now:
a pang, a rattle, a black,
bottomless pit


6.
that the margins weren’t clean
meant i’d be estranged but metastatic


7.
that i thought you were going to die,
and that it would be my fault if you did
if i left for california where the fellowship
i’d ground myself down for
waited, and so did everything else i’d always
wanted but never thought i’d get

that if i stayed and saw you in rehab and took
you for coffee and went to NA meetings, you’d
live and we’d be best friends again and maybe i
could even help take care of the baby

you did live

i’d do it again


8.
that time our mother said the thing that would
change everything between us


9.
that you cried but no tears came, just a red,
mashed face, fists balled tight, tiny chest
covering over with mottled scarlet blooms

when you came home from the doctor, tear
ducts fixed with tiny plastic tubes, your eyes
weeped and the only thing you wanted was
my favorite stuffed bear

you reached for it, thin streams of bloody goo
slipping down your face, and i was scared that
you would stain it, ruin it, make it so it wasn’t
mine anymore

i watched the hair soak and matte and harden
against your slimy face, crusty spikes where
there once had been soft fluff, and knew it
would be thrown out after you got better, after
you forgot about it

and since i’d never had any trouble crying,
i sobbed, but it wasn’t just the bear

i watched on the outside, the two of them
huddled around you, our mom and your dad,
and got the lonely feeling that you would only
be my sister for a little while





Ryan-Ashley Anderson is a conceptual artist and writer from the rural South and selected writings can be found at X-R-A-Y, Rejection Letters, and Farewell Transmission. Anderson is the managing editor of Pool Party, board secretary for Refuge America, and Accessibility Director for Rain Porch. She holds an MA in Critical Studies and MFA in Visual Studies.

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