I miss you, dear sister.

I miss you dearly.

I’ve missed being interrupted mid-sentence,

missed the snap of your voice,

the slap on my wrist when I overstepped—

your way of saying do better without saying it at all.

You were my first teacher.

No one corrects me now.

No one catches my mistakes mid-air

like you once did—

with impatience, with love,

sometimes both at once.

I miss the fights,

the slammed doors and stubborn silences.

I miss the arguments that taught me to think.

You were my mirror,

my sparring partner,

my compass.

There were days I hated you,

wished you would just disappear.

I thought the world would be quieter,

easier, without you.

But now you are gone,

and the silence is too loud.

I wish I had prayed

for a long, stubborn, beautiful life for you—

the kind that stretches into wrinkles and old jokes

and bickering over the television remote.

If love was ever sharp between us,

know this:

it was real.

It still is.

And I miss you.

Dearly.