katerina o'leary {district n i n e} fin~

Katerina O'leary

● f i f t e e n -- f e m a l e -- d i s t r i c t  n i n e -- d a r k  h a i r -- d a r k e y e s ●

 s i x t e e n seventeen

Things we lost to the flames
Things we'll never see again
All that we've amassed
Sits before us, shattered into ash

Empty promises line red lips. Not by design, but by nature. Chapped words and lips colliding as my eyes glue themselves to the dingy screen. One, two, three deaths upon his hands. By his blade so willingly. Four, Five. And it's over. A flash of red and the sight of burning tar, making their way into the skin of a thirteen year old girl. Thirteen years is far too short. He's coming home, Col the Victor. He threw himself into the games and he came out. He's the winner. So why do I feel so empty? It's what I wanted, what I needed. He's the reason I went to bed every night, only to wake up in the morning. The reason we hung onto the barest representation of life. I might have gone to bed hungry for fifteen years, but we always pushed forward. Chin up. Chin up. CHIN UP.

I find it increasingly more challenging to smile. To force cracking lips into the corners of my cheeks and to even put forth the image of happiness. How many hours have been spent, running a cloth along the grimy mirror? Pulling a brush through dark hair always matted with tangles. I hate it, I hate me. The way I look, the way I act, the gangly limbs which hang by my side like a waterlogged twig. A trait, admittedly, shared by my eldest brother. In his absence, I became no less vain. I pushed away my family's attempts at consolation. I chewed at cracking nails and stroked fraying locks. Chin up, Rin, Chin up. My voice is far too high pitched, my teeth stained a slight yellow. My legs too small and my fingers too short. There is no escape from the hatred which settles inside like an obsidian stone.  

It makes me a better person. Weak attempts to console myself do little to convince me. No matter how hard I try to put others before me, to be like Colgate O'leary, Katerina will always come first. And the hate rises again like a monster within my gut. Chin up. It's because of my selfishness, that I smiled when he killed them. My own desperate need for survival that gave me the will to overlook the skeletons slowly being shoved within our closet. Luke Davis. Hannah McEwen, Lyric Woulf, Willis Keeni, Laila Sycamore. I don't think I'll ever be able to purge their names from my skull. 'Cause behind each name, was a family. Perhaps they were in the games for the same reason that Col was. Perhaps he was responsible for more than five deaths this year. 

Perhaps we were responsible for more than five deaths.

I embraced my brothers and sister when he won. I screamed and clapped and rejoiced that my big brother was making his way home. I tried not to think about the demons burrowing their way deep inside of my soul. All twenty-three of them. I can't decide whether things will get better or worse from here on  out. I'd be lying if I said the thought of a luxurious life in Victor's Village isn't appealing. Even now, I can imagine falling into soft linen, wrapping myself in a warm comforter and drifting into a world of dreams sends shivers up my spine. I can smell the freshly cooked bread, almost taste the various cuts of meat presented willfully to us. And I want it. I've never wanted anything more than that. 

And yet, I don't think I'll ever be able to look Colgate in the eye. He's a murderer, perhaps killing more than anyone else who set foot in that arena. I wonder if he'll be the same. Will he still be as clumsy and kind? Will he bring with him a pungent odor that I learned to adore. What even is our family if not fighting to make ends meet? We've never been anything else but the less fortunate. I don't think we'd understand how to function if not struggling to find our next meal. 

You never see the Victor's families. They don't privilege you with the information about what happens to them after the tribute comes home. Do they fall apart at the seams? Crumble and quarry, guilt-ridden and broken. That couldn't happen to us, I won't let it. I need my family rat-dammit. It's selfish, I'm selfish. I wish I could accept that. But, I never will. Somehow, I'll always convince myself that what I do, I do for others. Perhaps that's where I get my superb talent of bullshitting. I lie to myself so often it isn't hard to convince others of the same thing. Image is everything, afterall. 

I don't think I'll ever know where that standard came to pass. It sure as hell wasn't embedded in me by my parents, who're the most kind and caring people you ever did meet. It wasn't my brothers, and definitely not little Hannah, three years my junior. The only conclusion that I come to, is that the fault lays on me and me alone. Nothing to do with my nature, or how I was nurtured, but my own mind that contorted and rotted, creating the corrupt monsters within. And for that, I am so, so sorry. 

I reveled in the attention the games brought me. Everyone wanted to speak with me. "Who is the real Colgate?" I think I got this question more than any other. And, on the surface, it's such a silly question.  The real Col is the man you see, dumbass. He's sweet and awkward, and willing to take care of us by any means. He's all I've ever wanted to be. At least,  that's what I was sure of before the games. He'd never lay a hand on another. A through and through gentle giant. Even when he volunteered, when I knew that in order to survive, it was inevitable that the image of him I held would be shattered, I hoped somehow that he'd remain to be the man that I envied so greatly. I insisted, throughout the entirety of the games, that Col was who he appeared to be. They hammered that question into my brain, as though they didn't believe the words which left my mouth. "Who is the real Colgate." 

It took me until the ninth day of his absence to finally admit the truth which had loomed over me since that gong rang. "I don't know." 

--------

I only work in absolutes. There are things I will do, and things I won't. To me, there is no such thing as gray. You're good, or bad, there's no inbetween. That is, until Colgate. I don't know if I'm ready to accept that he's the only gray within my narrow vision. 'Cause I can't seem to wrap my head around how he straddles the line between the black and white which I've become so comfortable with. I love him, that's a fact. and it'll never change. Before he left, he was completely white. An unlikely angel. How could he force me to accept the bad within those dark eyes mirrored by my own. I can't ignore the canons that fired by his own hand. one two three four five. 

I despise any kind of violence, and never in my life will I ever be willing to stoop that low. Maybe someday i'll eat my words. But I'm not gray. I strive to prove that I am good, that I am white. Yet, I fear that others only see the black veiling my face. selfish. stubborn, hypocritical. When i help others, it's to help myself. It's petty, and obvious. I don't know how I manage to care so deeply for my family when my heart is filled to the brim with my own interests. 

I am rigid. The tides will never ebb, and never flow. The trees won't rustle and the wind won't blow. Stuck in perfect symmetry, a picture perfect moment. Free of plagues and hardships. Of fatal flaws and evil. I am left holding the weight of my perfect world upon scrawny shoulders. Straining to keep the only perfection I'll ever except a reality. I am Rin. Not Katerina, or Kat, the only person I'll ever allow myself to be. My own wants and needs set aside for perfection. Image is everything. Don't break Rin. Keep going, keep running. 

...chin up.