Catherine

Who are you, Catherine? I know you. I knew you. Everything about you, and yet, what happened?

Thank God we spell our names differently. I would hate to have ANYTHING in common with you.

I just miss you. We weren't really so different. Only by a letter and a few months. Katherine. Catherine. Remember the time when we were still in middle school and we realized you would turn sixteen before I would? "We'll carpool!" And we could have since you live right down the street from me.

That is, if we even spoke to each other anymore.

You took me under your wing. You molded me in your own image. Do you have any idea how much I wanted to be just like you? I was like a young son imitating his father. Only I didn't know you were poison. I had no idea you'd seep into my mind and shake me awake every time I tried to sink into peaceful slumber. I had no idea that you would break me until I cried, naked in my bedroom, like a little child who had lost all hope. I had no idea that you would rob me of my identity until I was left reeling, spinning, falling, truly nameless, truly no one.

Until.
Until.
Until I created a new self. A new person to be, infused with the poison you injected into my eyes. Someone shaking, trembling, scratched, cracked, scarred, and damaged. Did you know I look like you now? Even after two years have gone by, I still think of you constantly. I imitate you. We are forever wrapped together by eight letters, the ninth makes a tiny difference.

But not enough. We are wrapped together by invisible fibers, cords, silky threads. I cannot move too far away from you for fear I will lose myself again, and become closer to the marred, broken thing you left me with.

Catherine, why can't I understand?