MITOSIS

It's screaming inside me. My heart. It's splitting into two. Where there was one heartbeat, there are now two. I feel flesh wrench from flesh, muscle tear, bone divide.

When it is over, I see with two pairs of eyes. There are two tongues, two noses, four ears. It's too much for my brain to handle. I see double, feel double. My bodies crash into each other. There are four sets of hands, twenty fingers to manipulate. I move my right feet to take a step forward, but I trip and fall over myself.

Again and Again.

It's a battle to master two bodies. My mind is buzzing always. What do I call myself? Sam 1 and 2? Who came first? Which body, which mind takes priority?

And then there is desire. Sam 2 is hungry but Sam 1 wants to sleep. To be awake and yet asleep? To eat and to not eat? To walk and to sit?

Contradictions.

I pick up things with the wrong hand. I tie my shoe laces wrong. I put the wrong shoes on the wrong feet. I eat with the wrong hands. My sari pallu falls on the wrong side. The fork ends up in my right hand, and the knife in the left. Across the table my mirror image smiles at me, grasping the right implements in each hand.

Wrong, wrong. Wrong.

I read my watch wrong. It's 11:40. I rush to a meeting scheduled for 12, hoping that I won't be late. But I land up five hours late. It's actually 5:10.

I want to sleep. But I can't sleep. My dreams are brief, my naps fitful. There's always one brain awake, buzzing, while the other sleeps. I watch over my own dreams, I curb my own desires, I wake myself before a nightmare seizes me.

A shadow. A mirror.

I know my features better than I have ever known them. I have seen my face change. I know how others look at me. I know more about myself than I ever wanted to.

I hate myself.

Now I never dream, never sleep. I stay awake at nights. My hands twitch, uncontrollably. I'm losing control. I try to stand up, but only one leg stretches out. I can't sit. I'm never alone. I stare at myself - my other self, the shadow who bogs my dreams, my steps.

But which is me? Which me do I hate?