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TWICE BLESSED OR TWICE CURSED?

Six years is a lifetime
in the clear eyes of the young.
Memory begins at half that,
and before, we are told, is but
a vast white world of forgetting.

We had been warned to expect
limits to be tested, but nothing
can prepare you for the unknown.
Each birth is unique, delivered
without a manual. Imagine two.

Though they came at a date
we had chosen, we quickly lost

all sense of time when they arrived.
We surrendered sleep, relied on the rattling
of clocks as workers on graveyard shifts.

Unable to lift eyelids past a slit,
the dark world a blur, we met
each other down the midnight hallway
with a bump on the shoulders and a groan.
A zombie greeting, far too distant to be "Hello."

We drew patience from a well
we never knew existed,
a well so deep it never ran dry.
Through endless nappy changes,
two-hour rests, less for breastfeeding,

Hands gone to trembling on their own,
eternity stretched on and on
until day and night melted
into each other. There was nothing
left to do but keep going.

Until one morning we woke up
after a night blessed with something close
to human sleep. We had been welded in this
torturous journey, instead of being forever severed.
You and I, my love, have seen

Six years of struggle with these
difficult creatures called twins.

The unspoken vow: never again.

Learn more about this author, Sufjan Simone.
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