A translation of my Memory Wordplay poem for anybody getting cross-eyed looking at it XD : She started it: while I was sleeping on my mother’s pregnant belly, a swift kick to my bald head woke me with tearful wails. When the nefarious, uncaring villain was first brought home in a swaddled bundle with an innocent look on her scrunchy face, I knew her at once, or rather my head knew her, and I reached over with one finger of my fat baby hand and poked her right in the eye. It was a declaration of war. From then on we siblings were a quarrelsome duo. When I cut off my bangs with crooked snips, she lopped off her whole ponytail. If she pinched a bit of sugar, I gobbled butter and heaps of brown sugar. Determined not to let our opponent get the upper hand, we insisted that every toy, every item of clothing, that one got, the other must too--but in a different hue, one red, one blue. We both disdained pink. Not all was ill between us, however. We used twinspeak to amuse ourselves and to confuse people into thinking we were identical twins. We sang to each other, "teeter-totter, teeter-totter", back and forth like a pendulum breathing. Most important, we stood fiercely against any enemy that wanted to pick a fight with either of us. As we got older, our interests diverged to other things--she was like a sunny-eyed pup, I was like a skulking cat with wanderlust. She sequestered herself inside with our mother and Oma to decorate scrapbooks with stickers and embroider white pillowcases. I went outside in all weather to collect medicinal mushrooms and flowers (and to occasionally steal heads of wheat from the neighbor’s field). At the woodpile I ground up dirt and mixed grain with water and mashed vegetables. I wouldn't eat what I’d made, but I'd pretend and leave leafy bundles for fairies and brownies and other good neighbors. In thunder and lightning I'd dance wildly and sing at the top of my lungs to the storm clouds. I was a fey-fickle changeling of a child. Nowhere was that more apparent (or a trial for my parents) than in the matter of baths. I locked horns, and stamped my feet, and made all kinds of excuses. The furrows left by my stubborn heels were wrinkles in the corners of my mother’s eyes (behind her glasses). I would not scrub my dirty body with washrags, or shampoo my tangled mop of hair. I would sneakily run a bath and not dip one toe in the water. I would craftily straddle the tub with my feet on the edges, hidden by the curtain, and attempt to lie and say I was clean. One afternoon, elbow-deep in a ditch muck, I made a house of straw, sticks, and mud for friendly sidhe and gentle fey. Beaming in satisfaction with my artistic work, I started home--only to stop dead in my tracks when I thought of the [bath-related? idk I really like the original “baptismic” even though it’s not a real word] battle awaiting me. Thinking myself clever, I stomped through the soggy ditch until I spied a nice deep divot in the algae-filled creek. I scrambled in and fished out the floating algae, draping green spongey strands to dry on the gritty sun-warmed concrete. In the mostly-clear trickling water there were pebbles covered with fuzzy-looking algae. The stink of weed-clogged runoff rose up. I sank my mud-caked hands into the oily water and swirled them about until I was totally drenched. Then, feeling certain of my victory, I marched back home. My mother was most annoyed by the stench, and mirthlessly sent me straight to the bathroom.
