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My baby sister uses dry wit to veer herself to destruction. She whispers it under her breath and it captures the wind, ebbing into silence.I pick up on it, I tell the joke again and even through the twist in my gut I manage to laugh at everyone's smiling faces.
My breath comes in pants and I scream until my throat is sore and my lips burn when they take the time wrapping around a word. I stamp my feet and grip the handles of my chair so fiercely that I leave some of my anger there in the form of burning handsMy sister curls her lip and snarls. She finds the infection and teases it open with perfectly manicured fingers. She digs painfully into my arm that leaves a searing heat in it's wake that I could never produce by myself. She looks up and smiles through snide words as she leaves me to crumble.
She is dry anger, the kind that is all grit and pull. The kind that exists when you don't care anymore.She uses it to stare into the petrified souls of people who have wronged her and she waits mercilessly until her tongue curls around insults like sharp ice.My anger is wet. It is conspicuous and loud and whole-hearted. Tears will well in my eyes and my screams will choke you, as if you are bathing in raw, hot, unrelenting fire. The pits of hell may not swallow you whole but my words sure as hell will. It's hard to pinpoint when I start caring. Maybe it's when my life is endangered, or when my friends are threatened. But it's never wholly for myself. There is always a little piece of me that wonders whether I could be better than this but holy hell if you think I'm going to use it before I have demand to you are sorely mistaken.There is such power and drive behind everything my sister does. Such a raw ambition that no other house could come close to replicating. Her desire to do better outweighs everything, even her prejudices and her non virtuous nature. It's the most admirable thing I've ever seen.Some wonder why we even bother to interact at all. We are different in almost all aspects and it sometimes frightens people how alike we actually are. We have the same values even though there are different feelings in which they swim. Fierce loyalty is the easiest to pinpoint. We take care of our own. I can be vicious and spiteful with a deep disregard for the rules. But it will be blatant and unruly and you usually find good-hearted undertones to humour me with. Because everyone has those days right?I am reckless in my rebellion but you'll see hers as shadows in the night and you'll only realise anything is out of place when the building has burnt to ash and she's the only one who's walked away from it all unscathed. The reason you hate her is because, while I am a manic dream – she is the thoughts that whisper to you at night and grumble at you through ten cups of coffee. She is the reality you cannot face in yourself. She's the physical manifestation of raw identity. The one that closes the curtains and tells themselves the light of day won't ever touch it. It scares you because you feel like she's touched a part of your soul you didn't know existed until the moment you saw yourself reflected in her eyes.