Departed & Digested

36 times out of 100,

a twin —

in the warmth of the womb

and comfort

of their very own skin,

their very own sibling,

their very own twin —

doesn't make it.

It’s called

Vanishing Twin Syndrome.

You’d think I’m here

to write a lament,

mourn a death,

eulogize the little one lost.

But if you thought that,

you clearly haven’t read me before.

I don’t write elegies.

I don’t romanticize death.

Death is just the natural course

for those born at the wrong time,

and there's no right time to be born. 

What is unsettling

at least 

to acceptable human conscience

is not the dying.

It’s what happens

to what’s left behind.

Because the truth rots

not just in graves —

it festers

in wombs.

And if you believe science —

because let’s be honest,

God pulling a child out of your womb

as tariff for your carnal indulgences

is as audaciously idiotic

as it is poetic —

then here's what happens:

The mother

feeds on the dead child.

Her body

absorbs it back.

So does the surviving twin.

In a world of 8 billion,

there are 250 million twins.

Which means:

90 million vanished twins.

Ninety million.

That’s 9

followed by 7 zeroes.

That many dead children.

That many siblings

who grew up

eating their own 

flesh and skin

before they even

learned to crawl.

And you stand here

telling me

cannibalism isn’t human?