♕ max ; wanderer ♕ finished

There is a handprint on my arm, painted in purple and green. Etchings mark my legs, jagged lines cutting a sculpture from beneath my skin. The burns glisten, watercolor shades of crimson and scarlet, scattered across the paper-white canvas of my body. My knuckles are raw and bleeding, cheeks hollow. I feel each notch in my spine as they press into the wood of my bedroom door - and my mother's words hurt more than the scars ever did. "You're a monster! Just like him." With that, she pointed a quivering finger at the staircase and sent me to bed without supper. I cried; usually, I am strong and silent as the belt digs into my flesh and as the world spins, but today my tears ran red. I cannot stand to think that I too am a terrible thing. Of course, it is his blood than runs in my veins, pumped by my rapidly beating heart.

I am not like him. I am sure of this as I reach out for handfuls of clothes, a notebook, the paper crown my sister gave me on my seventh birthday. My mind shakes, I am sure, filled to the brim with the desire to run. And so I unlatch the window with trembling hands, feeling raindrops on exposed skin. They calm me, but not enough. The moment my feet hit the ground - (too heavy, carving footprints in the gravel) - I am running. Not once do I look back. The fence is easily found; it buzzes in the darkness, a broken, disjointed hum that warns of pain. I am a listener, though, and I have heard the whispers about the District that tell of a gap just big enough to slip through. "But only a crazy person would risk it," the stranger had said, with a glance over their shoulder. I am not crazy, I am desperate. And so I find it, and hand over my fate to chance.

The eyes of destiny smile upon me, and nobody follows. My footsteps are uneven, never endless and hurried; I cannot wait to rid myself of my home and find myself far from the confines of my district. For many miles, I do not dare to believe in my good fortune. As sunrise begins to cast shadows around me and the forest embraces life, I slow my pace. The rain has not ceased to fall, and water has leaked into my very bones. I stop for nothing, and I smile through the cascading downpour, finally free. I head blindly and boldly into the unknown, for no maps chart these forbidden lands. It is only after twelve hours of wandering that I realize I need to find some direction other than simply far, far away.

Once, I was pretty. Before Daddy's careless hands tarnished my porcelain skin and the acid bit down on my fingers, strangers would remark on how sweet a child I was. When I pondered the mirror, I adored my mane of faded ginger curls. I'd make fierce faces at myself, and declare myself a wild thing. When my father found me, draped in a torn curtain with my hair in tangles and my cheeks streaked with muddy war-paint, he roared. True terror stuck me, and rightly so, because the flames of the fire were hot and the burn marks were harder to nurse than the bruises. Now, I don't really care for beauty or appearance in any right - power, for me, comes in climbing mountains and standing with my arms spread wide, feeling the wind all around me. It is strong, but it doesn't blow me away. In those moments, I might be King of the world.

The true wild things found me after four days of walking. By that time, the only thing I knew was how to take step after step. I paused not for water, sleep nor food, and I wept. (They sent me to bed without supper, and she told me I was just like him, as if there was nothing worse in all of Panem to grow up to be. And she was right, because I cannot imagine a fate more tragic than to grow into a monster.) At night, I shuddered in the darkness, not afraid, but lost. Unconsciousness found me, a punishment for neglecting the little girl inside of me. Mama always did used to say that all too often I forgot I was not invincible. ("You'll get hurt," she'd yell, and I'd glance down at my wounds and wonder why playing in a tree was an invalid way to collect scars, and yet the ones her husband dealt were witnessed without comment. How could I change value so quickly in her eyes?)

When my eyes fluttered open, I was at first surprised to be alive. Despair had gripped me, and I had given in entirely to the forest. The end, I was sure, had chosen me as it's next accomplice. But then I awoke to the gaze of seven children, each only a little older than myself, with strong limbs and the will to survive in their eyes. They looked after me until I was strong enough to play with them; they cared for me endlessly, perhaps glad for a new toy. I learned easily, quickly, and with eager devotion. My thanks extended all the way until I was better, and I looked upon seven adoring faces and wished them farewell.

"Oh, no, you mustn’t go." We'll eat you up, we love you so. Danger was laced in their words, and I realized that leaving them behind, in the sanctuary of their part of the land between districts, was the equivalent to disobedience. (They swore I was their ruler, braver than all of them, sure to be worshipped, and yet they also made sure I was trapped.) Years of living with my father made my skin itch at the thought of saying no for yet another time in my sixteen years. I was tired, and hadn't I always wanted to be wild? So I stayed with the wild things. Please don't go, I'll eat you whole, I love you so.

do you know where the wild things go
please don't go
i'll eat you whole, i love you so
please break my heart

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