ursa leithold // district five [fin]

DRACO LEITHOLD.

We are one.

We are split.

There are two sides opposite of each other- and the contrast between the two is stark.
Light and dark; it is all in black and white.

I am bathed in the veils of light; it was here that I made my bones. My parents, simple ranchers, carved rules into my head. Smile, be kind, say please and thank you- be. Good. I have always let their rules bind my wrists, always followed them with every piece of me but my heart. There is a flicker of a yearning for anarchy and rebellion, but I know I could never raise my fist against them. To harm those I love is to harm myself.

There was always a longing in my heart for something more- adventure, excitement, danger. Peril is full of shadows but it feels like a kiss. It turns my blood to fire, it morphs my heart into a furious hammer. Manic fear will pulse through me, but every moment of it is a paradise- twisted, perhaps, but a paradise.

Silence is suffocating.

My mother said I have a wild heart- I think she is right, but it's all pent up and held under lock and key. Be. Good.

It's a lot easier to destroy than to build. It's a lot easier to hate than love. Sometimes there are wars against my own self- battles raging between what is light and what is dark. There are moments when I seem to lose myself and my fingers curl into fists and I want to punch and punch and punch something anything, even air, until my knuckles are broken and bleeding. There are moments when the rage seems to blot out logic and love and red spills across everything-

sometimes, I cannot stop myself.

Be. Good.

My parents' words will be lost on me. Like ash carrying into the wind.

I will always find my grip again, find a fragment of light to pull me back into focus. But it terrifies me, to face demons such as my own. It shakes me to the core. It makes me weak- and I cannot stand to feel feeble and helpless, but I know that is exactly what I am.

Light and darkness-
I am lost on myself when they interlace, when they clash.

One cannot be a mixture of the two. Only one may prevail in each heart- it is light that prevails in mine.

I like to watch the sky change colors. Time is a painter, and the sky is its canvas. It bleeds a multitude of different hues across the subject propped up on its easel. It is the morning that is my favorite masterpiece- I love the pale golds and grays, how they flood everything the sky touches. When I pull myself from sleep and let it roll right off of me like dark water, I push open the door and breathe in the thin air and listen to birdsong carry in the wind.

Morning is most beautiful from the slopes of the hills on our family ranch. There is something about the way the sun breaks over its peaks- it stuns me even more every time I see it. There is something about the way its watery light treads along my skin, like a caress. It leaves freckles in its wake, just little faint kisses along my cheeks and nose and shoulders.

But it is the night I love most of all. Its darkness never daunted me, not even as a child. It was soothing, like an embrace. I loved to lie upon beds of soft grass on the hills and peer out into forever, into the stars, and connect the dots of the constellations. And I would make my own constellations up in my head, and the stories behind them, too. I can hardly bear to tear my gaze away from them, even when the lack of sleep forms purple stains like faint bruises beneath my eyes.

This place seems endless from the front porch. We live in a cute blue farm house with white trim and picket fences, vast enough to fit all six of us in the family. The ranch is filled with tall grass, bleached golden in the summer sun, and pens and a great crimson barn and animals, from creatures like pigs to foxes. After bathing in the sun for a morning, I will make my rounds across the ranch and tend to the animals, namely the domestic foxes- my favorites. Every animal has a name and a heart and its very own personality, and in their company, I feel like them. Like a child of nature.

It is here I made my bones, nestled in the shelter of my family- my parents and my sisters and I. We were born of the same seed- a set of quadruplets. Staring at them is like looking dead into a mirror. We share all the same features, from the dark hair that pours to our backs from our scalps right down to the very flesh, all fair and ever so lightly kissed by the pale, pale sun.

The only thing that can distinguish us from one another clearly enough is our style of clothing- mine is all lace dresses and flowing floral skirts. Anything girlish and soft, but with bold colors, too.

If I stand in the living room, I will be surrounded by a trio of great mirrors. I stare into faces that are my own. They are almost elfish, but softer- bold brows with a soft arch, a narrow nose, high cheekbones. The only difference between the four of us is what lies in our eyes- what lies in mine is kindness, but it is adulterated by a harsh, steely defiance. It burns and melds into everything it touches. Like fire. My eyes are dark as the rich earth after a gentle rain,

but oh, how they blaze.

Like fire.