“What’s it like to be a twin?”

I’ve many times been asked.

Well, it’s just a lot like being you,

Except you’re always two.

•

While I am in my skin right here

I’m also over there

I’m not quite sure if I am near

Or if we’re everywhere.

But being here and being there

Has not yet stretched me thin

For I grow deeper with despair

Till I let new thoughts in

•

‘What thoughts are these?’ you ask, ‘pray tell.’

For I still stand my ground

While looking for myths to dispel,

Simple steps, depths profound

•

It helps to look from others’ eyes

And hear their silent cries

•

I never asked to be in two

But even when I’m one

I cannot help but ask anew

Why others’ thoughts we shun

•

Are we not here but for a blink

And then life’s journey ends?

Instead of waiting on the brink

For my mind to extend,

If I can step into your skin

I’ll see you like a twin

The stuff that makes me who I am

In you’s the very same

Like two buds fallen from one stem

We grew as just one name

•

Do I live by what I think’s right

Or choose to learn still more?

So if I saw what’s in your sight

When you stand at your door–

That it was me standing aloof

Beneath my rigid roof–

With care would I leave behind

The pride that will not bend

So I can see life from your mind

By making you my friend?

Your voice still echoes in my ears

I wonder what you’d say

If at your door I stood in tears

And asked to always stay

•

For strangers now we’ll never be:

I’ve wept the fear away

And swept aside the enemy

Who held your view at bay

•

And though it seems ineffective

To bend this way and that

It reveals how your perspective’s

A story hinged in fact

•

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Thank you to my friend who saw perspective I could offer and suggested me as a guest on her husband’s podcast, StoryHinge. I fully enjoyed sharing some of my story as one of his first guests four years (and 90+ episodes) ago. I learned this week that my very own twin has never listened to it! So as a gift for our 40th birthday month, here is a treat you may enjoy guilt- and COVID-free before Halloween.

But I have my twin to thank for introducing me to Twenty One Pilots, a two-man band whose profound lyrics and indeterminate style have increased my faith in God, in our humanity, and in myself as a person with deep thoughts and a turbulent mind. In the song I reference for this post, you can start at the one-minute mark if you want the portion with lyrics only.