Duplicate Flesh Poem by Dakota Ellerton

When you are lost, I am lost. To an endless creeping shadow or lonliness and starless nights, beneath an ever widening sky of cloud and faith, you are simply you, as I am me, and we are one from a womb that fed us the smoke in our lungs, and the blood to pump from the tips of our fingers, to the minds we’d soon use and power to our heart’s desires.

You, whom I cherrish, are as flesh and blood as I am my own, you whom I am, and who is me. We are entwined together through the sea of sands in racing times, pressed to the glass of life and death.

With sacrafice and obligation we push and pull on the swings we play, we’d taught our hearts to never cry, but never not to love.

You and I are bound, sister. To a softened whisper in our ears, as his bearded chin would tickle our face, though our palms would sweat, and the hairs on our necks would tingle, we did what we gathered from mother and father, we survived as they survived, we acted upon their wishes and their dismisses, we loved others, as they loved others.

Still bound by the bands we wear and the brand mark of our curses, we can hold our chins high, and declare ourselves ready to live.