I miss my sister, Amber Joy. She is my best friend and kindred spirit and I lost her along my way to finding myself. So here I am- as me, as a woman, as what is supposed to be who I am and I am somehow incomplete without her. I can't describe me, without her in my life. I have learned to love myself and be proud and confident without her but that indescribable sparkle I have sometimes, is the two of us. It's truly being understood by another person in a way a man or a parent never can.
We used to fight hellishly as kids (and still do) so Mom would separate us and make us play in different rooms only to find us playing happily side by side moments later. We used to apologize to each other with trails of notes leading to the other's room until one of us would discover a somber-faced sister at the end, looking guilty and lonely and hoping for silent forgiveness. Most fights would just end in "I love you" and nothing more would be said. The fights changed over the years- from toys to clothes to too many layers of hurt and abandonment to silently bounce back- but we still sneak into the same room to be together.
We used to build fairy houses in the woods out of stumps and rotted out trees, using everything from acorn cap dishes to feather tufted, bark beds. Our imaginations were our escape, our refuge from a world that often seemed too grown up. We would wander off into the woods for the day and pretend we were Louis and Clark, every new hilltop was further from home and every plant was one that hadn't been named. We were explorers, adventurers, always indians and never cowboys. We were wild children and the world told us to be tame. We were supposed to be gypsies. Instead we are removed from one another and removed from our purpose. We were inseparable and always defended one another against the outside. I forgot how to protect her, I became selfish and forgot that she needed me as much as I needed her. I forgot who we were when it was just us and when we were best friends. I want to wear petticoats and bonnets and pick wild raspberries and swim in our private waterfall again. There have been so many tears since then and I wish the memory of those sun drenched summers, getting lost in our own time, would dry them out. That our memories could parch the wells within us and bleach out our damaged hearts, making us children again. We had it all. A wild world with only the limitation of our innocence. Innocence lost. Children eventually learn to fear and resent and hate and the wild flowers die. Amber please remind me how to find wild flowers again. I need you for that.
i carry your heart with me
i carry it in my heart
i am never without it
anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling
i fear no fate
for you are my fate, my sweet
i want no world
for beautiful you are my world, my true
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
here is the root of the root
and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart
i carry it in my heart
xoxox April Lynn