asila nom { district twelve } fin

ASILA

Bound by strings consisting of pure nerves, even when strengthened by tears—they cannot bear the weight of such a heavy heart.

It is crafted with sorrow, swirling with demons made visible by a thin skin, too thin to withstand any wind or rain. A droplet is harsh enough to carve a section of my shell away: blood that doesn't flow forced to drip out from the wound. Yet my face remains still, my mouth drawn closed to not speak a single word. Not a moan, nor a shout to escape me. They are chained up somewhere deeper; a place haunted with heroes from stories that were only just and nothing more. For they do not tell you otherwise.

We're made to believe every part of it, even in the galaxies of our own, our protectors cannot seem to filter out the truth from lies, the fact from the children's stories. They ready themselves with ram of battering and a touch with great force, yet their bunkers are so deep the whispers slip over their heads. No suffering, no danger, no heartbreak.

x

I sat on the throne of the world, observant with my eyes as all that glitters never did turn to gold. In all it's animation, it simply faded from screaming colour to black and white. Pasty and cold, depth destroyed by a lack of imagination. I promised to do what a Queen would do: to rule.

I was carefree in a kingdom of my own: District 12.

With a working mother and a father bound to me by blood and light and friendship: we were the ideal definition of what a family should be. Safe with security, a shoulder to cry on and someone to fall back on. Life became relaxed, easy to comprehend and deal with considering the routine of each day was so elementary. Wake up, school, home, write, sleep. And for a mere moment, it was perfect. Honey was sweet and it was ours for the taking.

Nothing lasts forever.

So when your pillars crumble from underneath you, your throne falls, your life flashes before your eyes, and your crown lies bleeding on the floor: the pain hits you like a wave at first, but in a matter of secrets you become immune. When you think you can save a person with your presence, to be there for them and hold their hand through it all- that is what hurts you, and the pain is what you become immune to. 

Just when you thought you could take on the world: death.

Death follows us like a shadow for our eternity. At times it pokes, it pulls and it pushes being unsuccessful in its ventures. But it builds strength to deliver the final blow, to make something terminal in the blink of an eye. To watch something insentient reap the life from someone is nauseating, turning your stomach as it churns and churns to become a flopping failure of a muscular organ.

I tried to fight it with him, to serve him well and meet his every demand. To work, to bring fruits of labour for him and write him to tell him 'everything will be okay'. But the once thought impossible became possible and life seeped from his invisible wounds leaving a brittle collection of skin and bones. Feathers forced to jump, seeds thrown to drown in the darkness.

My father, stolen, snatched from me.

And all my efforts were put to shame.

My eyes never did stop tearing up during the weeks that lay ahead. Just little droplets of an azure sea to keep me company as I isolated myself. I couldn't take it: the sympathy and the hugs from family members you only see when someone dies. I skipped class to avoid people asking why my eyes were so red. I remained within the small comforts of my own home: alone, afraid and broken. Everything I wished I wouldn't become when I was younger. 

I wanted to be a hero, a character from stories who would flash in like a bolt of lightning to save the day from the villain. To eat, sleep and breathe glory and honour in the true meaning of the word. I dreamed, I wrote my own stories of how I'd rule the world after saving Panem from a meteorite, collecting a kitten from the highest branch of an oak tree: it was there. Back then, I could feel inside of me. All that remains now are the ashes of hope. The fires of reality closed in and I soon realised:

Heroes aren't made from people like me.

x

It was expected, I was taught that girls never did simply become a saviour, a hero. Medals were strictly for men, power created only for the brave and of course—stories tell you that the princess relies on the hands of a man. I wish it was as simple as retrieving a pen and rewriting the books, but it was like all ink in the world had gone dry. A drought making it impossible to change what you knew. It was hard.

Especially when you have no words to explain how you feel.

We're painted with the same components: eyes, ears, mouth and nose. Five senses, five vital ingredients to create the strongest of them all. Figures you watch on the television are paper perfection sealed with colours extraordinary. Word after word allows them to conduct a song, a poem, a sentence. To speak is a basic human right yet even something as such can be stolen from us before we are born. The consequence is child's play: you are left mute. No— I am.

And though it's left my voice dry like a starless patch in the night sky, it has opened my eyes to the power I don't have. I can't cause hurt, no upset or heartbreak to add to my already iron heart to make it sink further into the void beneath it. There is no chance for me to sin with swears or mix together an evil concoction to cast a curse like a bitter witch in the willows (because there's no place in the real world for people like her).

The initial blow of the syllables a person can deliver is exceptionally short, yet their echoes are truly endless.

They can swarm and work together to cut deeper than any weapon could ever, yet those with the ability take them for granted. Something I could never do in my wildest dreams.

I wonder with the only words I have, thoughts, what I would sound like. Whether it be a brash, husky tone or one more delicate like the tweeting of a bird—I know that it's locked too deep within for me to ever uncover; the key melted and cast into something new. Reborn: something I wish I could be. My mind has a mind of it's own: thoughts ticking with the seconds hand as it draws a perfect circle around the clock face. It's uncontrollable.

Our lives are built around the idea of predetermination. Where we live is a lottery, only the richest able to afford the most tickets—those with rags cast aside into the drains to suffer the slings and arrows of poverty. How fortunate we are and how our fibres come together to create our appearance is fixed with a seal too firm to be broken.

The weakest have no chance.

x

But some of us do have a single slither of a chance, we cling with skeleton fingers onto the last shard of hope, hoping the glass does not cut deeper, deeper yet into our muscle. I was born, and I am to live in the skin I have now. The face of a pixie, large eyes which are globes, spinning blue and green; cheeks splattered with freckles which act as the emulsifier to bring the picture together.

But it doesn't create a masterpiece. It's ugly; amateur. A head fit for a crown of cardboard yet it is topped with long locks of greasy hair which never can be tamed. A mess. A long, brown mess of a mane which can't be tamed. Sunken eyes deepened by sorrow which are 'too large' to be human. Yet they can speak a thousand words of their own.

But I am tall, my head above the water allowing the cold air to slip into my lungs, to swell and swell—to bring the life into me. I stand taller than most, thin and fragile. 5 feet 9 and a half - every inch me is needed to extend to the uppermost shelf. A place only my father could get to, the one thing I inherited from him. Tall: easy to fall, easy to break. And, with skin so white it looks ill, infested with the parasitic touch of porcelain, china. I look demonic at times, ghostly like a lurking ghoul come to find peace. And though even a ghoul can search for such, neither he or I will ever find such.

x

Wormholes left in my head, my heart and my chest and the band-aids I once hoped would patch him up do not work for me either. There is no wound, but the pain feels too real for it to be a figment of my imagination. I absorb it. I've become immune.

Because nobody will ever know how I feel unless they've been there too. Starved of a voice, of an opinion: yet I've still hated and loved. One blink and I can watch as my demons root and crawl, my angels branch and soar. I have died from within and tried to live a hundred different lives but I'm drawn back to square one: to fight the same war I long to avoid.

To be on the front line, to drown in the mud of self-awareness, to be immersed in the struggles of silence.