amber lesauvage, district one { re-sub }

I'm not a hero. I can't swoop down from the sky and save people. I do not have a red cape billowing behind me, but I do have a mask. And it is not one of a hero. It is a mask of who my mother wants me to be, who I should be: the perfect career. But that is not who I am. And maybe I should be sorry, maybe I should apologize. But I will not apologize for something I am not sorry for.

I've been sorry for many things before. I'm sorry that I cannot be my mother's hero and take away the grief of her dead sister. I'm sorry for being my parents' only child, their only shot at perfection. I'm sorry for swearing at the top of my lungs and retorting sarcastic remarks when I quarrel with my mother. I'm sorry that my words burn brighter than than the flames that cascade down my back.

Apologies are expected of me; they are what is considered polite. Manners (which I do not give a damn about) aside, I will never say sorry - a pointless band-aid over shattered glass - for something I do not regret. (the tattoos printed across my arms and sternum, flooding myself on fiery amber liquid more than I should, feeling sick at the sound of a spear plunging its tip into the heart of a dummy, spitting words more scorching than the torrid summer afternoons . . . the list seems endless.)

The least I can do to make up for all of my flaws - or at least in the eyes of my parents - is to train and train and train, begrudgingly so, for the games. I am not afraid of them; in my early youth, the hunger games hung over me like a blanket of charcoal, but they are a terror that rips through my dreams no longer. The games are the same each year. Rewind - DEATH, rewind - DEATH. It is an everlasting cycle of stomach turning gore and twisted glory. The victor's crown is just a golden circle of tragedy forged by blood.

(One I do not want placed upon my head.)

But would i kill, if it meant coming home?

That is a question that I already know the dreaded answer to.

If I could feel the warmth of the district one sun igniting my locks of flames and planting kisses on my back, leaving behind copper freckles, I would skewer a blade through my own mother. If I could leave the nightmarish prison arena, even if it did take my brittle bones and break them apart and build them back up again as the bones of a warrior victor monster, and return to the lovingly tender embrace of my vast family, I would snatch away the life of anyone who tried to stand in my way.

My heart glows with kindness, but it is also frigid with selfishness.

There is something obscured beneath me. Beneath my beauty, enhanced by cosmetics, beneath my confident stride, there is something that hides in the shadows. Behind my caustic copper stare and beneath my fair, speckled skin that has become a canvas bearing various tattoos, is a girl torn in half. To kill or not to kill. I would choose to kill without a fleeting moment of hesitation, but if I could stop myself, I would choose not to kill. I pray it is a choice future that I will never stare into the sinister eyes of.

But it is a possibility that is the sun to my galaxy; my world revolves around it. It is the basic nature of a career. I would like to lie to myself and think that I am not a career, but the nature is embedded into my mind, programmed into my muscles, and runs in my blood.

I am a career. It is a fact I cannot deny or run from. I take after my parents in many ways - their willowy build, mother's flame-colored hair, father's sienna eyes - and the aggressive, competitive, selfish career nature is no exception. I was born a kitten softer than down feathers, but I have been raised as a graceful panther, slinking with a predatory step behind its prey. And my claws are honed, my teeth are bared. (Not by choice.)

I'm not a hero. But I am not villain, either - not yet. I am walking down the line, drawn by smeared, watery ink with a faulty pen, between hero and villain. I wonder if I will ever dare step a foot onto one of the sides. (And if I do, I know it will not be the side illuminated by light.) With bloodshed comes blackness; something I am willing to face if it means survival.

No, I am not a hero.

And I never will be.