bluebird chase | district five

Lonely silence fills the air. There is no faint whistle of evening wind as it bows the tall blades of summer grass. There is no rhythmic creek of the swing set that hangs on the old oak tree's lowest branch. It is as if the world has left me in solitude to wallow in the problems that plague my mind. Or, perhaps, the world has abandoned me.

I feel myself slowly caving into the loneliness that freezes over my heart and to the depression that is hovering over me, its sable horde of clouds gently closing in. The despair does not immediately captivate me in its inescapable jaws. It advances at a gradual pace, beginning with just a tender brush against the fingertips. It coaxes your guard down with soft kisses along your jawline and whispers in your ear.

And once the shield has been lowered, it strikes like a lethal viper, sinking its vicious fangs laced with venom into the heart and coils itself all around, holding it hostage. But there is no ransom, no price that can be paid to free yourself. Depression locks you in a cage and throws away the key. The only thing that can be done is to one, gnaw your way out of the steel cage with your teeth or two, sit in hopelessness and pray for an outside force to rescue you. But slowly, progressing each excruciating day, once the poison has seeped into your heart,

it kills you.

You will not physically die. But your heart will blacken and shrivel to ash.

(Have I reached that point? Am I inching closer and closer?)

Even if the venom finally took my heart and turned it to a hardened chunk of charcoal, I would still try to thrive. Because I do not give up, even in the darkest hour, and I am a survivor. I will never lay down in surrender. If I go down, physically or emotionally, I will go down fighting. But my last breath will be peace and not the chaos of blood and resistance.

It is foolish to fight death. It comes for us all, in the end. Whether it is the death or your body or soul, death is and will always be inevitable, despite that many of us hate to admit it. (But deep down, we all know the truth as well as we know how to breathe.)

If I could be buried anywhere I choose, I would be buried here, beneath the bed of soft verdant grass and pillow of daisies.

This is where I last saw my mother before she left—before she left forever. I remember her eyes, like great, swirling pools of clear blue water taken from the ocean—exactly like mine. They reflected my face, contorted with scorn and resentment as I cast my angry glare upon her. But it was not out of hatred, it was out of pain. She was a horrible mother and it was better for me that she was cut out of my life, a tragic piece cast out into the dust clouds of the past. And if that is selfish, I do not care. (As if she felt anything close to pain or regret or guilt at all when I told her I never wanted to see her again.)

My ears could not take anymore raging screams and shattering flower vases and insults.

"Be more like Blackbird."

Her words—

"I wish you were never born."

They burned—

"Why don't you just kill yourself instead of running your mouth?"

Like nothing else could on this earth.

"You just want attention. That's all you care about."

She took her anger out on me out of all of my siblings. (Though, I would prefer it be me over them.) She had this distorted view on life and everything around her and she tried to pass on her misery to me. And she did. Perhaps that was her goal all along: torture me until I was broken just like her.

Well you didn't break me, Mother. (The word always leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.) Not quite. Your fist was not strong enough to shatter me. But you did send cracks like jagged lightning spidering across my surface—eternal scars that will never fade.

And for that, my resentment towards you will never fade, just like those scars you etched into my skin.

What I hate the most is not my mother, but her face. I hate it because it is my face, too. And each time I peer into the mirror I nearly shudder, because it is like staring at a younger Andromeda Chase with short hair, ever so slightly windswept. Our hair is different in color and texture, and for that, I am grateful. (What a stupid thing to be grateful about.) Instead of dark chestnut like hers, my hair is a pale tawny color. Its flaxen streaks catch the golden sunlight, while hers would take on a slight reddish tinge.

And my hair does not curl in the slightest, not even at the temples or the very ends. I would not mind curly hair on myself if my mother did not have the same texture. In fact, I find it endearing on others. But I am relieved I do not have that remnant of her hanging over my head to torment me further.

Perhaps it should not bother me, how our eyebrows are nearly the same thickness and naturally slant almost exactly the same way, how my face looks like hers, especially when alive with anger. But it haunts me, anyway, regardless if it should or not.

I know I am not like her. My touch is too gentle, my words are too kind, my heart is too loyal (to the extent that it is nearly unhealthy). She deemed the outdoors disgusting, swarming with bugs she detested so adamantly. But I love the outdoors, plants most of all—I have a whole garden full of them. I have always marveled at how I can create life and kindle it, grow a flowers until their colorful petals stretch all around their yellow centers like the mane of a lion. My mother never understood that, but maybe that was because she did not appreciate life as much as I do.

(Is that why she was so horrid?)

I appreciate life too much to kill anything, let alone myself, no matter how bad things get. Life is created with the intention of death; there is no denying that. But I believe—I have to believe to go on with life—that there is a certain time death is meant to occur, and the time varies from person to person.

I do not know about now. Everything is a haze of uncertainty. Will I ever forgive my mother? Can I bring myself to move on, to leave the pain behind? There are many questions piling up that I cannot find the answer to. But I do know one thing.

It is not my time.

So no, Mother, I will keep running my mouth, and I won't kill myself.