.: i'm sinking strong {alaska / day 4 }

i am just another number
stack me up i'll crumble
and drift along

My death was always there, lurking like the stars. It wasn't always prevalent, but at the darkest moments, I could always see it eyeing me down. And after a while, I've started to accept the fact that one day I'll be among the glowing orbs, staring down at the sad, sad souls that think they have a chance at life. When I was a little girl, my mom was sick. The stars were always out for her, but she learned to enjoy the beauty of them and soak it all in while she had the chance. Some people see the stars as a blessing, and others as a curse, but I got used to them. I decided they're either or, but it doesn't matter because in the end I'll be one of them.

And sometimes stars aren't there. Sometimes, all looks well and clear, but eventually, they'll be back. And maybe the odds weren't in my favor, and maybe I saw the shining balls a little too much towards the end, but it was as certain as the sun I was going to be one of them. I was going to die and fly but I wouldn't be forgotten. But then again, we're all stars just dying to leave a mark, and we all want to be remembered - we need to be. With a death like mine, no one will remember me. Fourteenth-place tribute in the Sixtieth-something Hunger Games. I'm just one out of sixty.

And I swear, as the spear flew towards my eye, it was shining like a star.

i am just another nothing
light me up i'll fall in
and then be gone

Back home, Cygnus is probably wailing like the baby she was thirteen years ago, but some things never change, and I don't want some things to change. And maybe when Cygnus gets older, the hole in her heart will start to heal. Possibly, after she gets married and has kids, I won't be that much of a bother to her anymore. And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't tell her kids about me. I would like that. I would like for her to live a life where her dead sister isn't a target on her back. My death shouldn't be her's. The thing is, there might something that reopens that cut; someone accidentally mentioning it, stupid, muttered sorries from people who never cared in the first place, the District Seven girl tributes for the years to come; and that's why it'll always be a scar. Now, it's my turn to apologize, Cygnus, because mom and dad left you, not because they had the choice, but because the had to. I did it because I was selfish and stupid, and honestly, so were you. We can't hold onto these things, though, we have to shed them like skin and just hope things get better, they always do. Don't they?

We can wish that's the case.

i am well suited
for erasing
fading into hazy
i'm sinking strong

Those bitches that were ever mean to me - even though I was probably just as rude - will feel guilty now. "I bullied a dead girl," they'd cry, and if I could, I'd laugh at their stupidity because I deserved it. Everyone dies someday, and it's not like it's that big of a secret, so what were those girls expecting? For me to live forever? I know I won't feel guilty when they die - it's like putting your hand to a lit stove and expecting to not get burnt - because either they deserved it or I thought they did. In life, you bruise and you get bruised, and those bruises will heal - maybe not as faster as others - but they will. And the day the bruise is gone, you'll forget it was even there in the first place. The snide remarks I aimed at other girls (and vise versa) will only bruises that would eventually even out with the rest of our skin, and we'll never notice them again.

and then it's all
over and done

Death, I decided, is not bad at all. People say it's fast and others believe it to be slow, but I know the truth. It's speedy and timeless in the same moment. One second, you're standing strong, ready to take on the world, the next moment, you're on the ground, crumpled in a bloodied mess. But in those brief seconds your life flashes before your eyes. I saw my mom dying and Cygnus reading and my poetry books in my bookshelf and my dad smiling (though he has no reason to) and what I called my friends and a bottle of beer and the skillet I cooked breakfast on every morning and I saw Bran and Curtis and I saw Heather Elliot. All of those moments made an infinite loop in my head in an finite amount of time. Some would say I'm too young to die, but I know you can't place a number on death.

well suited for erasing
fading into hazy

'Til death do us part, they'd say, but I'll never get married, and I'm already dead. I see my dad, kissing the woman I never heard of and I leave the chapel running, but no one looks at me. As I push open the doors, I fall into a white abyss, and at the bottom, I see more white. For minutes I'm falling - but it could have been seconds or hours - and finally, the white fades into a brown. I'm no longer falling, but I'm not falling, either. (Alaska's cannon fires.) I walk forward where I see the outline of a door, and I push through to see my mom laying in a bed. "Mom," I breathe. It's been forever since I saw her and I know it's what I've been dreaming of my whole life. She is exactly how I saw her the last time; hooked up to tubes and other mechanical devices; but it's different. I'm not longer afraid of the machine that lies in front of me, instead, I crawl into the bed with her and our legs intertwine.

"Can you tell me a story?"

She nods her head.

My mom picks up my hair with her delicate and starts to weave my hair like she does the story. "There was once a beautiful young girl with a dead mother, a younger sister, and a father. The mother died when she was young, and they never got to say good-bye. Then, when the girl got older, she started to be more passive. She stood up for her beliefs. Then, the girl was reaped. 'Yes,' she had said, even though she knew she was leaving her sister behind like everyone else has." I fell asleep because I knew the rest of the story, I knew how it would end.

"She had died far too young."

i'm sinking strong

[OOC: Yay finally done. This is sort of crap but whatevs. Thanks to everyone Alaska allied with. Thanks to Stare for helping me a lot with this post. Lyric Credit to Emily Osment.]