Oni | Capitol (fin)

Oni is a name that speaks born from a sacred ground. And I think that's significant, because falling from the dirty womb of a prostitute into the streets of a side of the Capitol no one wants to admit even exists, that is not sacred. They said I was born from fire and ash, but of those two I could only agree with the latter, because ash infused scorn is the only thing I remember tasting for the three years that I spent on the streets within a mother's arms, counting the drug droplets left on her skin as goodbye presents from needles. Needles, drugs, I always could manage to admire how straight her lines were when she lined up that white ash substance before breathing it in like the perfume and Capitol lights, except her body and mind couldn't compare to the beauty and grace of the latter two, and when she finally collapsed into the street like a pile of trash, they didn't treat her as anything else, wrapped up in faked love stained blankets, Capitol bills spilling from her pockets like the rain droplets that came from the skies. I didn't cry, no. She had never taught me that, I had never learned from the broken woman who'd made me, only watched and observed. Broken things surrounded that woman, dreams long let go but passions still infused into her bloodstreams, shattered promises made in between tossed bedsheets and scratches against a man's back, i'll make you a star. The concept was silly, for even stars collapsed in on themselves and died. She could have never been a star, because she had a longer forehead than I do, and I found out at the age of three that a forehead like mine could never be captured as beautiful unless done up in colors and ink droplets. 

Dumpster baby, that's the first nickname I ever received. Cluttered voices in between the occasional side glance, a broken girl on gold paved sidewalk wasn't exactly one to catch the positive attention of residents. I remember green dotted cheeks, cheekbones higher than the men my mother had accompanied. Ribcage against skin, rippling against flesh, tearing of childhood hope only heard in between the growling of my stomach. White wigs and gold eyes, a woman stopped with the falling of the sun to ask me where i'd come from, if I had a story. Spiderwebs hadn't been spun in those early years, and so the only thing I could offer her was a picture book instead, lifted up shirt complementing shattering ribcage against tissue paper skin, funny how in a city built for the gods some can't even get a crumb of ambrosia. Gasp, she feigned fear against pointed sharpened fingernails, covering puffed up lips with plump digits. I remember watching her cheekbones rise and fall as she spoke to me, not knowing how to respond at the first person to ever step foot on the dirtied sacred ground that i'd only known my whole life. She held out one hand to me in between beckoning words, but I didn't trust the yellow fingernails she carried, walking beside her, counting the amount of times her dress whacked against my thighs. 

The funny thing about this city is that as much as it loves to forget it's past tribute victims, it never likes to forget one's past. Imagine this, in a home full of people whose storybooks are the exact same as yours, you can still manage to be an outsider. I was labelled and branded the moment Capitol air kissed my skin, marked with a bright red T for the trash I was remembered by. I remember my heart lingering in between greyed out walls, passions lost to my own confusion. They provided food and they provided shelter, booming thunder could never reach me between those walls, but the boom of a cannon to mark the death of my passions could. I was a house of cards, hastily built before knocked down and thrown to the wind, lost in a foster home that had never promised me able to be found, at the age of eight I knew I had to get out as soon as my age marked eighteen. I found solace in between the wishes for a mother and father's arms, the discovery of being hardened to the point that regret became non-existent being the only treasure found hidedn in those walls. The sour mark of sin became sweet upon my tongue, and just like many of the Capitolite's in this city, I was thrown to the wolves with nothing but a knife moulded from my own desires. This home broke me until what was broke became me again, pieced together with bits of ash stuck in the cracks. This home provided shelter against storms, but it did not provide solitude from the storm of making it in this city. And thats what they never learned, children huddled in between their parents arms until the age where they can start to leech off of their money. They never  learn what fighting is, and they never know of the hunt. They call themselves wolves, but they are nothing but bodies stained with ink and paints, covered by the mask of a menacing wolf. 

Busted TV set, I claimed it as territory annually, eyes glued to the thing they wanted me glued to. Age ten I learned that one cannot be rebellious their whole life, that one must submit before they can rise again. And so I submitted, self-glued eyes to the screen and, in between static lines and lost signals I pieced together sketch after sketch of menace after menace. These tributes, I envied their fighting spirit. Even in between blood spatters and gashes against flesh armor they fought for their life. And in between cannon shots I built up a foundation of sketch and sketch, paper cuts and thumbs flattened against the wood of a pencil, these creatures bared fangs and blood in between them, sketchbook piled on sketchbook. Eighteen years old I didn't receive a gift or a hug or a kiss or a love letter, I knew kids blew out candles stacked on top of birthday pastries, but I saw no point in blowing out the flame of the new beginning of my life, if anything I wanted to kindle it, maximize it, burn the walls that threatened to stop me. 

Age eighteen and three days later I left with a backpack of clothes and my ambitions resting on my shoulders. I was not looking for love, I was not looking for parental guidance, I was not looking for myself or anyone else. I was looking for success in a city built on the promise of never achieving it, sketches in one hand and wolf pelt in the other. I blared pistols at the breaking of dawn, a queen with a crown of drug infused pasts and murky water future. One man told me that the path to success was paved to gold, but I soon found that if you scratched away the gold, it was just ice underneath. Lost in a city of people who had been born with maps to success seared into their flesh, every day I had to question whether to run or walk or beg or crawl, most often it was the last. Fighter, fighter, I held no weapons like the tributes in the Games and no grudges like the enemies of my mother, I was simply present. A ghoul, a ghost, a spirit. 

Age nineteen and three infinity quarters, I became a poltergeist.

Losing it to the wild things as my sketches were shoved back into my face, the look of a man who is surprised is something I will never forget. One crushed dream and a stack of smeared pencil sketches, I slammed a fist onto the table before spewing cyanide straight into his face, burst bubbles and a queen with a broken crown atop her head. Face to face, success to ghoul, I had witnessed the greatest of disappointments since I came out of my mother as trash and damn well I was not leaving that room until I tasted some level of godly ambrosia. Success served cold, I had been turned away from place after place, even though my ideas and sketches rivaled that of people with success on their shoulders. Stand down, show down, I never thought i'd be staring down a man who held my life in his hands, moulding it like putty. I had shot countless rounds at the breaking of dawn, one pistol shot for every morning I awoke purposeless. And there I stood, one pistol shot left and the gun lined up at the dead center of his face. I was wild and ambitious, a fighter turned ghost turned spirit turned poltergeist turned person again, and I never expected a slammed fist and a raised voice to work. "Tomorrow. Six O'clock, sharp." He pronounced the last word with poison, as if sharp things had ever been a threat to me before. 

Age nineteen and one job, the only time I cried. 

Rare break of character for a girl who'd built the last nineteen years and however many days building a persona for herself, to come to work without one's cheeks dyed or lips puffed or body faked to the point of acceptance. Sketches on desk, I marked each with a signature scribbled at the bottom. Rare moment of weakness for a girl who'd sworn to never be weak again, the boss tore through the sheets as easily as drugs through my mother's broken dreams. Scraped knees and bruised bones could not compare, I discovered my first day at work that I couldn't find a liking for the taste of the tears that fell to my cheeks, and so I promised never to again. I thought I was a fighter before, I came the next day with swords sheathed and blades hidden. I succumbed to the worst to become the best. 

Because this city is not about making a name for yourself. It is about making a name for others. 

Age twenty one and my coworkers never did show the fighting skills i'd learned through pressed ribcages and starved growls, I climbed a ladder only meant for the kings of former successes, slipping from the rungs of a weathered and broken ladder, falling and falling before climbing back up. My path to success was not paved with gold to begin with, I had to pave it myself, step by step breath by breath. The hard times became easier and my decisions still held no chances of regrets, ruthless ambitions and brutal methods driving the core of my climbing of the ladder. The discovery of priceless arrogance and cockiness accompanied my first major break, working under the supervision of Glamour Kinkade during the Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games. His name was built on others, mutts designed to perfection and credit not given where it was due, hidden away for no one to find. Capitol parties and champagne wine glasses, neither could wash the sour taste of Glamour Kinkade's personality from my mouth. Yet a cub does not lash out against a wolf, and as much I would have liked to bare fangs, to showdown with the man, I bit my tongue until it bled with my fighting spirit, following orders until I could give them. 

Age twenty three and I had my breakthrough, smeared sketches of shark on hound, blood in it's fangs and ferocity pumped in it's veins, I formed the gulpers from ash and dust, moulding them until they were capable of tearing drug riddled arm from body with one foul swipe. They were brutality and beauty in one, destroying the fight in tributes one bite at a time. Credit due where it was given, I never stopped admiring the fight in a tribute, even when their arm was lost to the abyss and their life faded away to the beasts. I was asked, in between champagne driven laughter and painted cheek conversation "What exactly does One mean?" Smirk and fingers curled around a wine glass, this ribcage no longer pressed against the skin that carried it. 

"Oni means born to fight, dear." 

Age twenty four and I find myself deep rooted in expectations, forests of success around me and yet I still do know where i'm going. Built from drug ridden arms and tossed bedsheets, a mother who sold her soul for capitol bills. I found myself through finding others, and I found success through building that of others. I no longer fire off pistol shots in the morning, I no longer need to hear the blazing gunshots to awaken. Fighter, yes, but my fangs no longer need bearing. 

I am my own sacred ground.