sera carter {six} finished

"you are it.
you are the answer to your questions."
- anita krizzan, unknown.

hello, my name is sera.
life seems to be moving at a thousand miles a second
as if i were a cloud and in a blink i was gone.

(sometimes i would like to disappear
when i get scared or lost.)

SERA AGE 6

You,

I am a n g r y. Words suck. I'm so mad that my pencil is breaki-

i'm scared of a lot of things
like peacekeepers
and bee stings.
sometimes i try to be brave
but that never really works out.

i like making paper cranes,
my best friend jesse taught me how.

SERA AGE 11

Dear You,

We have to write about ourselves for school in a letter but the teacher has to be the one to read it. I don't want to do it, so instead I'm writing to you. Ha! Take that teacher!

My name is Sera and I am 11 years old. I live in District Six, which looks after medicine and sick people. I live with my Mom and my Dad. I don't have any pets or brothers and sisters. My Mom works at the hospitals and my Dad does business stuff. I think. I like to write letters, play in the snow, and make paper animals. When I grow up I want to be alive a nurse like my Mom. But everyone wants to be one of those. Maybe I could write letters to important people like the Mayor instead. My favourite subject in school is Spelling and my favourite season is fall. I hope you liked my letter.

(Hi, You, it's me again. I actually ripped that paragraph from this letter and put it in my backpack. I'll give that to my teacher but she won't know that it wasn't actually written for her! Haha! I won't be able to stop laughing! Wish me luck!)

(he told me he loved me once. i laughed, and said he was silly.
not because i didn't believe him, but because it's easier than hurting.
and i don't let people hurt me. i'm scared of that most of all.)

my mom thinks i'm a hoarder, collecting all my old letters to nobody.
she doesn't really keep things around.
like my old clothes, or photographs.

i could just get up and leave this house and nobody would think i ever lived here,
or that i ever existed.

that frightens me, too.

SERA AGE 7 5/6

Dear You,

Hello it is me again. I am bored so I thought I would write a letter. Do you like my different coloured pens? I like them very much. But their they're yous usle useless just sitting in the packet. Mom will be mad if I use them up too soon, but I don't care. I don't have anything to write about really I just wanted to try them out.

Ok bye!

i also like walking to school in the morning,
the way the sun paints the sky makes me smile.
i like the quiet, wandering through the land of the awake
whilst everyone else is sleeping.

SERA AGE 14

Dear You,

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. I'm not very good at this lately. There's currently 324 paper cranes hanging from my ceiling. Mom thinks they're a little childish but Dad quite likes them. It's getting a bit tricky to find paper that isn't 'important adult stuff' but I managed to find some of this tucked away under my bed, so for now it'll have to do. I thought about writing letters into the paper cranes for people to find, but I'm a little scared of doing that. Maybe I'll hang them in the trees on my way to school. Would you mind that, You? If I wrote to somebody else?

some people think i'm mad, to walk all this way to school
but i don't mind it. i enjoy it.

even in winter, when the air we surround ourselves in turns cold,
as if it decided it didn't love us anymore
freezes everything and turns the ground to ice
i smile.

SERA AGE 16 3/4

Dear You,

My best friend told me he loved me today. I laughed, and hugged him, and told him he was stupid.

I told him I was invisible when I first met him. I still am. He thinks he's the only one who sees me - but he's not. I see me. I'm the only one. And I'm nothing worth looking at at all.

i like change.
and i also like knowing that the weather will eventually forgive us
and warm up again.

my dad isn't around often
but when he is, he's everywhere.
people say i look like him: brown hair, kind eyes, soft smiles and warmth.

but i don't carry his strength, his ideas, his charisma.
i am quiet, and soft-spoken, and say things i shouldn't as they burst from my lips.
(biting them down again is hard - they taste awful and catch in my throat.)

i think that i'm more like my mom.
afraid of losing things, afraid of the theft of my life, of the things around me that matter.
but i'm more of a documenter, a filer, a keep-it-locked-away-er.

SERA AGE 17

Dear You,

I think I am afraid of being loved. Or at least loving back. Which I don't understand, because my parents love each other. At least, I think they do. They seem to be in love, and I believe them (don't tell them that, I can't let them get away with smug smiles any more.)

I wish that you could write back to me, You. That I could scribble your name and address on an envelope and send all my troubles your way. And that you could send me letters back containing everything I need to know. (Who are you, anyway? Are you Jesse? Mom? Myself, in 10 years time?)

Please write soon. I've been waiting a long while.

i want to be remembered somehow, even though i'm not sure how or in what way.
but in more than just memories or sad glances out of windows.

for someone so quiet, i want an awful lot said about me.
i guess that makes me selfish too.

or maybe i just expect a lot from people i care about.
maybe i expect too much.

SERA AGE 12

Dear You,

Reaping is tomorrow. I'm scared. In fact I've never been more terrified in my life, to tell the truth. I wish I had a brother or sister to hold my hand and to tell me that everything was going to be fine, that everything was going to be ok. I used to pretend that my brother or sister was walking beside me when I was little and silly, but none of the other kids look like me. They say I'm weird, and lanky, and that glasses make me look dorky. They make me mad but I try not to show it.

Sometimes I envy the kids who walk hand in hand to the reaping. but I don't envy the ones who sob as their sibling is called upon that stage. I don't envy the ones who tremble in fear that their family might be stolen away.

What's easier - loneliness, or responsibility?

Write soon. I hope.

but i know that a lot of people expect a lot from me, so it only seems fair to want the same thing.

my mom expects me to be alive to see my 19th birthday
(which isn't really fair considering she chose to have me underneath the reaping risk.)

my dad expects me to know everything he knew at my age (which i gather is a lot the way he talks about himself)
and yet i wouldn't know,
because he's hardly ever around.

i wish he was.
then maybe i'd get to know him a bit better,
and understand him and his demands.
(am i demanding? is that what i am?)

SERA AGE 9

Dear You,

School told Mom and Dad that I wasn't doing so well. I think they're upset. But what does it matter? They don't teach us proper things. Just things about Panem and the Capitol. I made three paper cranes before the teacher took them off of me. Luckily I saved two in my pocket. There's no more string in the kitchen but once we get some I'll hang mine up with all the others. You'd like them, I think. I do, anyway.

i try to be a lot of things, particularly not like my parents
but i suppose we all reach the end of life and laugh at our childish thoughts
and our teen promises to never, ever become like them.

i believe that you die twice - once when your heart stops, and again when someone says your name for the last time.

SERA AGE 8 1/2

Dear You,

I hope you don't mind that I turned your last letter into a wonky crane. Jesse said that it takes practise practice but I'm getting better. It used to annoy me soooo much but I think I got the hang of it now! If I don't write for a while I'm making cranes, sorry!

(PS: my favourite colour pens ran out. Sorry for using green instead of yellow.)

maybe these pages with my name and age will be forgotten for a while.
but i hope that one day someone finds them, and smiles,
and reads aloud my name and i will be born into the imagination of someone who treasures them, treasures me.

(then again, i might be lost forever.)

but it doesn't hurt to try, right?

i wrote a letter to someone once.
i tied the first crane to the tree branches, watching it catch in the autumn breeze.
i smiled and drifted away like the wind.

Dear You,

Hello there. I hope this brightens your day. I write a lot of letters but none of them seem to get answered. Maybe the birds take off and fly away before anyone gets the chance to see them. Well, anyway, I hope you write back - I've never had anyone else write back before. It'd be a first.

Love Me.

and a few days later, the bird flew back.

Dear Me,

I don't know who you are, and I don't really think you know who you are either. Or who I am. (Perhaps we are the same being? Impossible, yes. But I've always liked the impossible.) But thank you for your letter, albeit short, it did indeed make my day that much nicer.

Apologies for re-folding your paper crane, it was rather nice but I'm afraid I cannot create my own just yet. Perhaps you could send me instructions? It is rather marvellous.

Write soon,

You.

you became real.
i was delighted, and still am.
a stranger i talk to,
a friend i have never said hello to,
a blank page to create conversation instead.

i taught you how to make the cranes, eventually. jesse helped me draw instructions.
(he's awfully good at that, but i'd never tell him. he's big headed enough as it is.)
sometimes the spaces between our letters were a few hours - other times span weeks.

SERA AGE 10

Dear You,

I need to share this wonderful cake recipe that Mom got out today with you. If there's odd-looking smudges on the paper please forgive me, but I've got a huge bit in my other hand as I write this letter and it is crumbling all over the paper as I try to eat it. I like baking with Mom, although I'm rubbish at it and she frets if I do something wrong. Maybe if I were more of a perfectionist she wouldn't mind, but as you can see by the state of this letter I'm more messy than clean. So, here it is...

i try to imagine what you looks like
i wonder if you imagines what i look like, too.
i look... different, i suppose.
of course i am different than i was when i was younger
and different than i will when i'm older

i suppose that old clothes, bitten-down nails and dry lips aren't my best features
nor is my hair that splits at the end
although we tend to focus on these things when we look in the mirror.
there's no point in trying to look pretty
or to cover up my oily skin
if i am to die at any moment.

i'd rather people remember my soul
that my shell.

SERA AGE 11

Dear You,

Please write back. I wish I had siblings. Mom is working and so is Dad and I'm afraid of the dark and the lights have all gone out. Sorry for the wonky letters, I can't see anythi

i do not know who you is, whether i would love or fear them in the present
but i know that sometimes distance is best
imagination does wonders
and that you can find friendship in something as simple as a few letters,
a sheet of paper,
and a piece of string.

"think of me
when you're out there

and remember to slow down."
- embrz, slow down.