Jiana Bentley-Tomlinson // D7 // FIN

Gryphon Career Tribute 503 POSTS Pronouns: He/Him last seen Aug 31, 2020 22:24:24 GMT -5 heading to cloud nine	Jiana Bentley-Tomlinson // D7 // FIN Aug 22, 2016 19:45:47 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Gryphon on Aug 22, 2016 19:45:47 GMT -5 Jiana Bentley-Tomlinson 16 17 18 District Seven - 685f47 -
	Last Edit: Jul 14, 2017 1:37:28 GMT -5 by Gryphon Made by the lovely moon(stone) <3

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Jiana Bentley-Tomlinson // D7 // FIN Dec 1, 2016 22:57:36 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Gryphon on Dec 1, 2016 22:57:36 GMT -5

jiana bentley-tomlinson
District 7 ♕ 16 17 18

Young, wide, and inquisitive.

My hazel eyes--young, wide, and inquisitive--stare up at an intriguing sight sitting pleasantly behind my home: a gigantic arm encapsulated in thick walls of bark alongside a multitude of other layers of treestuff, raising its fingers toward the sky that twist and spiral upwards at the blues and whites which paint it. Black hair sways from cool currents soaring through the air, moving in neat, straight lines from my scalp down until they become jagged and harsh at the tips.

My skin is a warm olive, but it radiates like gold; not gold that shimmers and casts off white sparks that briefly blind your dear eyes, like the kind District 1 and other privileged families around Panem have the opportunity to flaunt around their healthy, nourished bodies; but gold that glows and wraps you in warmth, feelings of good in the form of dragonflies otherwise hard to capture and cherish in a nation plagued with butterflies of pain. Gold like the ball of gas in the sky bathes you in. My face, a home for two droopy-shaped eyes, a soft nose, and small but plump lips.

A white dress of plainness, tatteredness, frilliness, shortness...it's all I wear as I eye the outstretched arm of wood with wonder, sticking out of the smooth, patchy earth my feet rest comfortably upon. Nestled between the fingers were large clumps of giant green moss, fanning out in all directions with some strands falling to the dirt. It was a fascinating thing of beauty life graced us with, its own square in the quilt of nature she wove with her own two hands.

A tree.

I was six years old when I recognized its beauty.

It was all I surrounded myself with. I laid lines of it upon pieces of paper, I learned to climb beyond the trunks and swung my legs back and forth as they dangled off the branches, I shielded my thin frame with the leaves when the sun's gold was fresh out of a furnace. It was a strong enthusiasm for that part of the quilt, which life kindly gave to me as she started on another one for her next child to find interest in.

My own grew as I did. Father taught me the art of wood carving to perfect and invest time in when I had any to spare, and showed me his job as a load puller for a sawmill. He worked in a vast forest of arms holding up moss like they were treasure, and my astonishment failed to run out of fuel.

So I spent my days devoting them to the woody perennials, eventually learning how to leap from one to another as I continued ascending the strips of bark. Although not a particularly crafty person, the gist of wood carving was comprehended as well, and basic objects were easily attainable at good quality. Hands were littered with scars, but they were worn proudly as my schoolmates and teachers alike questioned about them, in return being shared the magic I would frequently experience outside the classrooms and playground.

We'd hold picnics together by another, smaller forest adjacent to us. I'd teach them how to move themselves up the stems, sit securely and comfortably on the limbs as we watch the sun go down; how to carefully guide a carving knife through small logs and shape it as desired, to put up with the almost-inevitable cuts as a result, to sew that square on the quilt into their own pillow hearts like I already have as life looked on with a big, warm smile on her face.

I didn't need to go looking for dragonflies anymore, I already had my own. So many were kept that I began giving some away to my friends and family, and spreading them out preserved our pillow hearts in good condition. A haven had blossomed in our beating and thinking organs, where endless pools of glowing liquid gold bubbled and dragonflies prospered. It was like a dream come true--

A dream com--

A dream--
A dream--

A dream--

A butterfly lands on my shoulder.

When I feel it graze the area, I look down and find six more.

My eyes move around in fear, screaming sounding from my throat as a large swarm of them suddenly come at me from all sides and latch themselves onto my clothes, my hair, my skin and I'm swallowed whole, drowning in not the blood from my still beating but now ripped open pillow heart but in a pile of pairs of wings beating against one another--

I was old enough to start helping provide for my family.

Dad was now amongst a new sea of trees, and he was showing me the ropes. We were inside his vehicle, a truck only for and kept at the workplace with the keys being handed back to his supervisor every night, where he was teaching me how to operate it when abruptly did it stop. Assuming we got lodged on something, he went out to check. I followed him to see a big hunk of rock was found to be the culprit, and as he tried to remove it from a back tire, a loud, ominous creaking sound caught our attention.

It was nearby.

A shadow falls on us, growing in size faster than I anticipated and threatening to smother the features I've grown into, my eyes, nose, lips, and my now gaunt cheeks with darkness but then I'm pushed out of the darkness and--

Timber.

His skull caved in with his truck when they all found us, the workers. Two of the men on the job were cutting down the tree we were right next to, and they couldn't hear us over the roaring of the chainsaw. They couldn't see us over the bark that conquered their entire field of vision.

They were deaf and blind to our presence, but I heard and saw what now lays in front of me just fine.

A coffin being lowered into the ground.

Another one followed my father not long after his descended six feet under. A few weeks later mom's feathery cushion burst, her body trembling and my eyes watering when the gold in her chest spilled out onto the floor while the dragonflies quickly fluttered away. Instantaneously were they replaced by her own herd of hurt, of suffering. They all circled around her and kept spinning as a tornado of despair from her feet to her head and back again, speeding up until

she just

disappeared.

They vaporized her, reduced her to nothing. She hung herself on a branch of the same tree life introduced me to years ago. A bunch of them clung onto me next and the rest of the horde followed the dragonflies, but I wouldn't let them take me too. I'm not letting myself fall, my resistance prompting them to eat away at the stuffing jutting out the tear in my pad.

Fine.

They can take what they want, but despite the rivers passionately pumping out of my eyes like my heart used to, despite my haven now being a barren wasteland and the cave that is my mind no longer carrying ores of glimmering gold to mine, at the end of the day my life is the last essence of my existence they will get to consume.

They never will.

But I no longer ascended the stems and seated myself on top of the branches. Paper was left untouched and stark white, the carving knife unlifted so scars didn't make new friends. Gradually, I didn't either, and the ones already established soon left my side when my sorrow began infecting them. The square on my cushion was split in two as it was the object of the rip, but I still cut both pieces out and finished the job so it'd be beyond repair. I sprinkled them all over life like confetti as she frowns with melancholy clouding her gaze. Right behind her in the distance was death, laughing to himself and doing a dance as he witnessed me begin a cold relationship of dislike and distrust with the former.

A neighboring couple took me in and adopted me as their own, I did the same with their name but never let go of the one I was born with. It'll serve as a memory, a refresher, a reason why Jiana Bentley was the way she is now.

I continued to work at my father's sawmill, but only to benefit my new parents. They were loving and treated me like I was their own child. Though I appreciated the sentiment and returned it for their sake, I laughed at their affection when I found in a room only the company of myself.

They still let themselves feel, as if life wasn't going to turn her back on them at any given notice.

For that, I pity them.

Young, wide, and inquisitive were three words that no longer described my now glassy gaze. They looked up at the tree my mom was seen under, her demise seeming to have affected the plant as it was now bare and dead too.

I was sixteen years old when I recognized how ugly they really were.

Last Edit: Jul 14, 2017 1:36:34 GMT -5 by Gryphon

Made by the lovely moon(stone) <3

Gryphon Career Tribute 503 POSTS Pronouns: He/Him last seen Aug 31, 2020 22:24:24 GMT -5 heading to cloud nine	Jiana Bentley-Tomlinson // D7 // FIN Dec 3, 2016 15:54:26 GMT -5 Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Gryphon on Dec 3, 2016 15:54:26 GMT -5 Finished. <3
	Made by the lovely moon(stone) <3

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Jiana Bentley-Tomlinson // D7 // FIN Dec 3, 2016 22:41:11 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2016 22:41:11 GMT -5

“...but gold that glows and wraps you in warmth, feelings of good in the form of dragonflies otherwise hard to capture and cherish in a nation plagued with butterflies of pain.”

there were way too many sweet simple moments and beautiful descriptions to quote them all; absolutely gorgeous work!