Things get sour when we’re dying each other’s hair tangerine in your mother’s bathroom. There are ibis statues everywhere, the ceiling is coated in rubbery leaves bought at estate sales, sometimes when I enter your world it’s hard to figure out what’s real and what’s reflection, who is the double and is the oil painting coming to life to strangle me in my sleep or what, and why are all your father’s shoes lined up at the back of the house, everyone knows he’s never coming back, went to bargain for the last jug of milk in town and the witch laced his heart into her own, they dragged each other to the ocean and argued until they sank the ship, your mother doesn’t care, she lines the shoes up by color, she lets spiders wrap nests in their husks, she feeds the spiders sugar and each of their webby beds is glistening in the last light of the season.

Just a few hours ago we were running through the backyard, I was on your shoulders, and you were laughing so hard I thought you were going to choke, we were making pinky promises and screaming in fairy circles, you found a mushroom that looked just like a marble you had as a kid and instead of keeping it for yourself you gave it to me. This color is all wrong, I can hear you saying. But I’m wondering if the hair dye is wrong or if it’s that you’re starting to look like me.

You never wanted a twin, would have preferred to walk through the sandy patches by yourself, that summer I saw you drowning in shallow water and I helped you away from the crabs whose arms were securing you to the sand, some of the crabs were playing you songs on miniature flutes they’d made from discarded beer bottles and other crabs still were crying but I took you anyway, this isn’t a mermaid thing, everyone in your family is sour and salty, everyone wears bras with starfish stamped across their surfaces and you’re the worst at swimming, you’re the best at holding me in your arms, your mother should be my mother.

You’re so pissed off about the orange situation you don’t notice me slipping into your life, easy there, double-bubble gum and double down on the trouble, no longer girl but copy, I am pretending to be you at the dining room table and your mother is serenading me while making pancakes, they’ll never find out you’re still in the bathroom, you’ve shrunk to the size of a fish in the tub and soon you’ll be gilded and edgy like a star, do I want seconds? your mother is asking. I do, I do, I reply, I am her second-best, no longer useless, but I will miss the way we used to lay on the grass together and eat sticky buns, those nights we wore your father’s yellow rainboots and the land was warm and misty from July, you said something like no one was as nice as me and I thought, for a split second, about what might happen if I didn’t devour your whole.