My sister became a bitch Two weeks before she turned six By the time she was seven I wanted to send her up to heaven She stole my favourite sweater Then blamed it on the cat Cut the hair off all my dolls And swore blind she “found them like that” Used to wait behind doorways Just to scare me half to death Then smile like a tiny politician With biscuit crumbs on her breath She once sold my roller skates To a boy called Dean For two cola bottles And a glow-in-the-dark submarine They called her Wildflower Lord knows why Nothing gentle survived When that child walked by She burned through every room Like a tiny hurricane And somehow every argument Ended with me taking blame She put salt inside the sugar jar And vinegar in Mum’s wine Then sat there looking innocent While I got punished every time One summer she convinced me There was treasure in the woods Turned out she just wanted me To carry all her stuff uphill I still haven’t forgiven her for that But she waited outside school When those older girls got cruel And punched a kid called Matthew For throwing my backpack in the pool Then gave me half her dinner Like she hadn’t started the fight That was always how it worked with us Chaos first Then loyalty by night They called her Wildflower Sharp tongue Dirty knees Every neighbour on our street Knew her by name before police She’d drag me into trouble Then swear we were a team Honestly looking back now We probably terrified the village By sixteen we’d evolved Into coordinated crime Sneaking vodka into weddings Like it was an art form at the time Once we glued a teacher’s stapler To his desk before exams Then acted deeply sympathetic While he cursed in front of parents Honestly We were little shits Funny thing is Somewhere along the way I stopped trying to survive her And started surviving with her They call us Wildflowers now Still loud Still hard to tame Still turning bad ideas Into unforgettable days And if life gets cold sometimes Or the world turns strange and mean She’s still the first one I would call To help me bury the evidence scene
