Me and You

My homozygous twin who are twenty years younger, you speak Milanese while I am here with the heavy Roma accent, you lived in liquid nitrogen, but you are not used to the cold, you hate it as much as I do. When they thawed you they didn’t tell me, yet I felt you, you are a part of me. You are me. You and I are the same, now that I see you, that you are here in front of me, I know. I touch your hand and it is my hand from twenty years ago, small, with short nails, small golden hairs on the back. Today my nails are streaked, my husband says I use too much bleach. You still have pink student fingers. Your parents keep you in cotton wool, you are rich. I can see it from the cool bag, from the designer glasses. You are happy - you are telling me - you grew up in a room full of dolls, of toys that kept company but suffocated. You were free to do what I was not allowed to, you stay late in the evening, you smoke joints and drink until you throw up.

Two embryos born together - we say to each other - one frozen because it was not the right time, then postponed, almost forgotten, finally given to a family in the north, mom and dad had to work and they wanted so much a child, yes, but only one.

I’ve always known about you, because mom then repented. Sometimes I saw her looking out the window, as if looking for you on the rooftops, a lost cat that would not return with a whistle.

We are the same, sister, even though my mother and my father — our mother and our father — were workers and, in turn, I married a metalworker. We are the same even if you will take the degree that I have not.

I see it from the blush every time my eyes stare at you, from the way you look away if I ask you a question and it seems that the whole universe is in the tips of your shoes. The same happens to me, if you ask. Genetics or the environment? Maybe? Certain sentences remain stuck even after twenty years, even if you become another person. Only I know what you know, what you suffer, when your hand trembles, like now, when you squeeze the phone with bleached fingers, with sweaty palms, when you take courage and try to tell the joke that seemed so easy, so tellable, before all eyes pinned on you, pierced you.

You nod, a faint voice comes out, you tell me: “You know, the other day I passed through a crowd of people …” then your voice chokes, you blink, too quickly like a kind of tic.

“Enough, enough,” I murmur. I do not want you to feel bad, I know what it feels like, when it seems that you have nothing more to tell and that your life is an empty box, but you insist, now you want to vent, you understand that I have understood: “I have lost all my friends because of that … “

I look down because I’m blushing, I hold you close to me. If I blush I will not kill anyone and I would like to tell you, indeed I would like to shout it at you, but it would not comfort you. You are rigid, tough.

“You still have time”, I say, “it’s late for me, but don’t give up. Never.”