Older Sister

For me, it’s not just the sharing of physical things that makes me angry.
I feel like not only do I have to share a room with her.
I have to share a lot of the things that she does.
But I’ll always be worse at it than she is.
No matter how hard I try,
I will always be the younger sister,
I will always be five years behind her.
While she was drawing amazing self portraits in 9th grade,
I was still struggling to draw a heart perfectly in the 4th.
While she was worrying about what college to attend,
I was struggling through planning the next middle school dance.
I will always be five years less than she is.
I will always just be five years behind.
I care about being called my sister’s name,
not because I think it’s an insult.
I don’t like it,
because it makes me feel like she is more memorable than I am.
That she is just so much better than me,
that my name is that much more unmemorable than hers is.
So when teachers call me by her name
when I have their class everyday, it almost hurts.
They haven’t had her in class in five years
so why is it that they can remember her name
so much better than mine?
Whenever I want to do something,
I am copying her.
Whenever I make a decision,
it was inspired by her.
Whenever I try to do anything, according to her,
I am copying her.
And that hurts.
It hurts because I’m not allowed to do ANYTHING that she did,
just because she did it first.
I told my mom how I made the front page of YWP
She just shrugged and said,
“Your sister probably did that before.”
When I told my sister I liked to write,
she said that I’m taking up her only productive passtime.
Of course, I don’t like to write just because I like to do it,
I must be copying her, right?
Would this even be a question if I was the older sibling?
If I was even the same age?
The one reason why I’m such a perfectionist in everything I do
is not because I feel a natural need to.
No, it’s because my sister is five years ahead
and I know, that I will never be able to catch up.