Better late than not at all

Hmmm, posting Poetry Thursday contributions on a Monday...
It was a big week (-end). That's my excuse!

This week we had to write in our own voice. It's funny that when I write about myself I find that I'm writing out stuff that I've already dealt with and moved past. However it still seems important to put it down on paper somehow, like a record of my former selves. So here's a record of the me that was:

The Other
I have carried with me
an evil twin.
This Doppelganger,
epiphyte, latched itself
around my adrenal cortex,
lay blinking in quiet
malevolence, whispering
me angst- ridden lullabies,
feeding on my childhood,
filling me with fear of
incoming tides, electric fences,
water in my ears.
This shadow clung close and
whispered with such charm and guile
I could not see anything
other than my own reflection,
could not hear
other than my own voice,
blind to this growth,
this greedy, sucking tumour until
foolish with power it
ate on itself, wasting
away as my own body
waned with it.
A crone and a midwife
Called to me, crooned to
my withering other,
coaxed it from its
fleshy nest, grasped its
breach birth feet.
With shrunken thoat it howled
as it was drawn from me.
I felt the wrench and
ripping of flesh and it
lost grip and
fell from my back.
Now I carry this other self
with me in a box, a
small token, worry bead,
a companion.
It still sweetly sings and I
feed it soft morsels,
stroke it, and lull it
back to sleep.