I wore her silence like borrowed clothes. I laughed her laugh so many times I forgot the sound of my own. In the dark, when you held me, I knew whose ghost was in the space between your ribs.
I was ano_ko_no kawari — the substitute. The stand-in. The spare umbrella they grabbed only when the rain started. ano_ko_no_kawari
I was never the first choice. Not the one they looked for in a crowded room. Not the name that slipped out when they were half-asleep and honest. I wore her silence like borrowed clothes