Happy Birthday

What did they do to us? You were too young, too young for this. I'm just a few moments your senior, that's what you'd tell me, but those moments make me feel that it's my fault. That it was always my responsibility. I tried. I tried so hard, maybe too hard, and you tried too. To make it seem normal. All those years until we finally accepted our cleaving destinies, our isolated fates. I remember. I remember when we cut each other's hair that time before we cared about the next day's possibilities, way back then when we were wholly the same. I remember Mother's fury and how we hid the hair under the rug and ourselves under the table. I remember when they took you away, separated unwillingly for the first time, when they locked you up in that echoing room and sat me down to talk. I remember the way your scream split their frightful lies to me, the truths I begged to be lies, and how your eyes were heavy and how they wouldn't let me go to you. Happy birthday, I said. Happy birthday, and we cried. I remember how everything was normal at the academy, how we could be brothers again and let the heavy truths fade away. I remember walking all the way home only to turn down separate hallways to separate duties, to the same parents. And it wasn't fair at all and we didn't know then, we couldn't, we desperately didn't want to know why one of us was less and the other was more. It wasn't true, brother. We thought it was, after that, when we had our own. I remember when I first wore those robes, these robes, for the first time and to everyone else, our fate was immobilized. We had to believe for them that it was true. I remember when we had our babies, when I brought my privileged timid one and you brought your denied privileged one into the web our rules create. Yes, I remember when I first hurt you, when my mind saw the future for us all, when my eyes were blind to the pain I caused. I remember when you hurt me to save my worthless life. Because we're brothers. Because we're brothers. Because we were brothers. I remember it all. And I'm searching under the rug, under the table and there's nothing. I'm trying to turn down the other path home, but I can't pass. I'm trying to lose the robes, to accept your boy, to feel the pain. All I hear is the scream. When I broke the dam and let the deluge of agony hit you. It felt so wrong. I had no power over you, we were equals, twin brothers, we shared everything but a lie on your forehead. Wake up, happy birthday, happy birthday. What did I do to us?