You contain your incomplete, undeveloped twin in the form of a tumor made up of diverse tissues.



You may resemble other people, but you are not at home with them. You are haunted by the impression that your life could have been entirely different, that something has gone wrong. Specifically, you have the sense that another life is buried within yours, but that you have choked or stifled it, or perhaps that it has, of its own accord, turned in on itself—the source of a constant, unremitting frustration that seems to have no suitable outlet, or an itch you cannot reach to scratch. You tend to be suspicious, to suspect others of carrying a secret, when you are the one with the secret—a secret that you do not know and will never know. Unable to determine what is wrong, you scrutinize yourself for signs of a contrary will, but in every respect you resemble yourself: you are normal. This strikes you as an almost unbearable deceit; if only you could let yourself express... express... what? You find some relief in anagrams. What hides within you can find no way out, but you feel it growing heavier, knottier. You suspect it is growing teeth. Your literary form is the lipogram.

You are related to...
Alamjan Nematilaev, a seven year old boy from Kazakhstan, whose foetal twin was removed in 2003