Member-only story
CLOSE LIKE THAT
We don’t go on weekend getaways together
Sometimes we don’t even speak on holidays
We aren’t close like that
We don’t even look like sisters
My sister braided my fine, baby chick hair into submission
My scalp was hot with her brushing and taming
My barely there baby chick hair was not like hers
Thick, black and coarse like ground pepper
My sister tells me I saved her
She never says from what
She doesn’t have to
My sister learned words just so she could teach them to me
She wanted me to be better
As if there was a finite amount of confidence in the world;
She sacrificed her portion
And put words into my mouth with her long, brown fingers
Eat, eat she said, nourishing me
She couldn’t have been more than 17
Holding me on her hip at the Pussy Cat Theater in Oakland
Picking up food money from my mom’s best friend
While my mother was working at one of her many, many menial jobs to keep us all alive
