I walk in,
her room smells of sickness,
maybe death.
I've never smelt death.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
It does smell like that time when she was in fourth grade
and had some sort of fruit in her gym bag
and left it in there
and it rotted after one of her meets
and that room never smelled the same.
It used to be my room.
But now it is hers and it is scented like her,
and part of her heart just died,
and you can smell it.
But it's okay,
it'll smell better someday.
After all,
though she'd hate for me to say this,
she's only in eighth grade.
There is time for air freshener.
My dad is making scrambled eggs in the kitchen,
and I realize that I do not know my sister,
and I am knowing her less and less
as the days slip by.
What kind of sister am I?
I must be a bad one.
Or is it that I am a perfectly fine sister,
just not the kind she wants?
Does she need me at all?
Does she need a big sister?
Did she ever need a big sister?
Or was she always sitting joking in the kitchen
in the face of such troubles as these?
Was she always so strong?