leaf a. ketchum | capitol | FIN

Tick, tock - and she's gone.

We don't know what took her. But whatever did acted faster than I ever could, than they ever could, than anyone ever could. We received the news of her illness one day and then let go the next. The memories feel so frozen and cold, retracing my finger upon the stories in my head give me a shiver down my spine which feels so wrong but beautiful. The pain throbs around my body, pulsating with more and more force with each movement until finally, the curtains are lowered and lights dim.

I remember what happened that fatal day, waking up and brushing my hair with that steel metal brush - the handle heavy and the bristles hard against my scalp. The feeling was surprisingly soothing, yet it felt so alien and abnormal. I could feel something with everything I did, I could feel that the 24th held a new book which required me to turn the pages.

Down the stairs I stepped, one by one until I counted all the way up the fourteen. That was her age at the time, she was my sister, and she was fourteen years old. A spring in my step caused me to stumble a little upon reaching the sleek, hardwood floor of our ground floor, yet I composed myself and managed to finish the way I begun. Head held high, my feet carrying me.

But I stopped. The air: cold, the silence was excruciatingly loud, so loud my ears focused too much on the little thing, but it was broken. 

A voice.

Two words.

She's dead.

And those words made me feel so limp and vulnerable. I felt as if I was stuck in the azure blue seas beyond the Districts, my head forced to stay above water as the rest of my body struggled to keep me breathing. The words were so serious and pure, no lies and no jokes were entangled in their delivery, just the brutal, blatant truth. She's gone.

~~~

It's different now. I can look back at our happiest memories together and recognise how similar we were, how alike. Admittedly, she was years older than me, but she had great influence on everything I did. The way I acted, my manners and positivity to the way I styled my locks of thick brown hair. There was nothing about me now which reminded me of her. Because if there was, I don't think I'd be able to hold back the immense flood of tears.

I wear my hair down, no ribbons twisted by her fingers, weaved into my hair as it was plaited down my back. I just let it fall down to my hips, a slight wave in its movement as it moves to the length of my upper torso. My face is fragmented - no longer a pretty picture of beautiful parts, now it is a mess. A mess of a mouth which is always closed, blank cheeks and eyes that see beyond skin. I wonder if someone, anyone in this city sees me as a work of art because that's how they saw her.

Maybe my time will come. I'm still so young, but the thirst to be seen like her drives me from within. I embrace my differences like anyone else would, but if you remove all the sunken features and shadows cast where my skeleton lies, I'm a reflection of her when she was my age. The same height, 4 feet 10 inches and a half. A similar weight: 70 lbs. It's as if she was the painting worthy of a place in a gallery, and I'm a forged copy.

Perhaps that is why I'm so silent. A forged piece of artwork has no soul or sense. It is not painted with love or hatred, it is just a copy. I don't have anything to say because it's already been said. My words would be heard before, their meaning, perhaps lost as they are associated with the meaning already said by another - until eventually, there's no point in wasting precious time speaking them.

But there is one thing that brings me alive. Competition, competing with someone else until a rightful victory is earned. The feeling of it feels so natural to me, like something I was born to do. In anything with a title or prize, I feel like a bird who is spreading her wings to leave the nest, I feel like the bird who is soaring through the sky who is so carefree and open. It's like I was born strong.. and won't go down without a fight.

Yet, my mind is plagued with bitterness. I remain silent and as a result, stand alone and observe all that goes on around me. My starless eyes glare at those around me, my mind working overtime to make ends meet and draw conclusions from one first look. I swore not to do it once, I did, but it's too difficult to control something that is something so mysterious and clever.

I often ponder about what she really thought of it all.

I've tried to speak with them about it, about her. They seem so dismissal and quiet as if they've a secret to hide. I've cried to them and they do not present me with open arms and an ear, I've told them my worries and they are taken in but merely sink and do not flow within them.

One day I'll figure them out.

But for now, I know that knowing my own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.