The Extra Dot

My sister and I

shared counted commonalities

amongst a shitload of differences:

a last name,

a house that smelled like antiseptic

and inherited silence,

and two people

we were taught to call

Maa and Baba.

That’s where the symmetry ended.

We had the same mother,

the same father —

but very different parents.

She got the beginning of their love story.

I arrived at the epilogue

they never wanted to read aloud.

She was the spark.

I was the ash that wouldn't blow away.

She was the miracle —

a child sculpted from longing,

a fragile heartbeat they prayed for

in temple queues and fertility clinics.

She came wrapped in awe.

I came because —

the condoms had run out

the disgust hadn't crept in

consequences are often conspiracies.

She was the child of hope.

I was the child of habit.

She was born to a script

they wrote in candlelight.

I stumbled into the scene

like a drunk line

they forgot to edit.

You know how a single dot

ends a sentence —

a full stop

clean, complete, confident?

She was that dot.

I was the second dot.

That awkward, dangling punctuation

that doesn’t clarify —

just lingers.

I was the extra dot.

The one that ruins the grammar

but gets left in anyway

because no one has the time

to delete what they didn’t ask for.

Her breath was definitive. 

My existence was vague.

She had parents.

I had two tired people

counting the years till tuition fees stopped.

She got bedtime stories.

I got shut doors and

"not now."

She got “we made you from love.”

I got “well, we had room for one more.”

Even her tantrums were adorable.

Mine were diagnoses.

She was raised

like a poem pinned to the fridge.

I was raised

like a reminder on a bill they forgot to pay.

Even the air changed

when she walked into a room.

When I did,

they asked who left the lights on.

She was the headline.

I was the asterisk 

at the bottom of the page.

She was the shrine.

I was the dust 

settled in the neglected corners of the deity.

And this isn’t resentment.

This is archaeology.

I’m not digging for blame —

I’m just naming the bones

that built the difference.

Because love has tiers.

And parenting has expiry dates.

And sometimes,

the only thing you inherit

is proof

you weren’t the plan.

So no —

I’m not angry.

I’m just done trying

to turn ellipses

into poetry.

She was the full stop.

I was the ghost

that followed it.

And now,

three and a half decades later,

my sister has a son —

the apple of her eye.

And I smile.

Not because she has someone to love,

but because fate finally sent her

a mirror with tiny feet.

Let her learn what it feels like

to give your everything

and be remembered as background noise.

Let her witness

the same glazed-over gaze

she once watched them give me.

And when her prodigal son forgets her birthday,

or leaves her texts on read,

or calls her love “too much,”

I hope it stings

just enough

to sound familiar.

Once, not so long ago

she was the full stop.

I was the extra dot.

And now?

She is the extra dot.

Life's come full circle.

Welcome to the margin, dear sister!