Issue #20 (2011) PDF - myweb - Long Island University

it was my sister, lily. she was older than me by two years. now, she's younger than me, and the gap
between us is just going to get bigger as time goes on.
especially if i keep on having all these birthdays.
she was brilliant. perfect grades, scholarships coming out of her ears. when she sang it sounded like
something other than a trapped owl. the noses she drew looked like noses, and her capitalization was
flawless. she wasn't intimidated by first person pronouns.
she was beautiful. everybody loved her.
nobody even remembered what my name was.
if they did, you would have said something when i said my name was lily, right
-----------
it's not that i was jealous, not really.
okay, maybe a little, but lily actually paid attention to me. she braided my hair and corrected my
grammar, helped me hide my soiled sheets.
no one else did, but lily remembered my name. she called me by the whole thing every day.
abigail lucinda laudi. murmured in my ear like i was someone.
i wasn't expecting her to die.
she wasn't sick. she didn't do anything reckless. we were shocked when we heard that the driver was
drunk.
turns out, he wasn't drunk. turns out, he was epileptic, and that was his very first seizure. nobody
knew until the autopsy.
both of them were dead before the car burst into flames. both of them died on impact. thank god,
but
i wish they'd both been drunk. maybe then she could have known what it was like to live before she
stopped.
76