Twins — Confiscated

To marry one person is to confiscate the life you might have lived with another. To have a child is to confiscate the untethered freedom of the childless self. To dedicate yourself to a craft is to confiscate the ease of a life without that relentless discipline. These are not small losses. They are amputation without anesthesia. And we are supposed to smile through them and call them "growing up."

The phrase "confiscated twin" evokes something more violent than mere sacrifice. Sacrifice implies a noble offering at an altar of one’s choosing. Confiscation implies authority, seizure, a power that reaches into your chest and removes something vital without your consent. Sometimes that authority is external: a family’s expectations, a society’s norms, an economy’s brutal arithmetic. Sometimes it is internal: the voice of fear, the tyranny of pragmatism, the seduction of safety. confiscated twins

And then, with gentleness, turn back to the one life you do have. The one you are living. The one that is, for all its confiscations, still miraculously yours. To marry one person is to confiscate the