byron kruse | twelve [fin]

Just look at me, it is unlikely that I will ever learn. Scars as reminders, lessons left unstudied. They are not predicaments that I seek but it is just what life enjoys throwing me into. A magnet of chaos that I want to defend my family from, my only option is to fight it back. Mining for fortune and even under the twenty-foot-thick earth, those armed with pickaxes and a scheme to have me in the dirt always tarnish my chances of finding peace. If I raise the white flag then I have failed, if I raise my fists then I have a chance to come out victorious.

It is an underworld that I flee from the carnage too, an amateur in an art that I am unlikely to ever master. It's the only pleasure I can get that is to myself and there is nowhere else for me to share it with than on the streets. The lights go dark and District Twelve is my stage. A solo performer with a dwindling audience, sometimes my hat has a handful of coins in it. It's illusion tricks and the occasional dance act that wander me from the fury that engulfs me at surprising intervals but time to practice it is becoming so scarce. Sometimes months without stepping out of my work shoes and into paradise. Exhaustion is taking a toll and my only free time is delivered to my mother.

Any treasures in life must be sought by my own hand and have yet to discover anything other than the freedom of performing that continuously makes me happy. Love from family keeps a smile on my face but there must be more out there. Family brings just as much pain as it does joy, two brothers and a mother who is barely coping. Father’s lungs collapsed when he was down the mine, it took them hours to pull out his body. His face barely recognisable from the thickness of the coal dust, all the years of keeping our plates filled finally got to him. Now his hard work continues through us, how long until I am no longer able to breath? Or will I become a cripple like all the elders? I hope it is an instant mine collapse that triggers my eventual end.

Father left behind his mark on me, just as the working hours of the day and the chaos of the night have. Green eyes to carry through the world and all I see with them is gloom, he wouldn’t have wanted me to use them as I do but he didn’t leave me behind in a forgiving world. I tower mother, but my older brother is closer to the stars than I am.

All these scars and wrinkles under my eyes, a sign of an unkempt life. It is a tough trail this whole living thing and whenever I see the rings of bruises around my eyes, the agony of defeat sends me tumbling. Ripped trousers that should have been disposed of years ago, I real do bare the banner of poverty.

It is all about being on top of everything for me, the littlest things and I must have full control of it. Mother says the trait is getting me hurt but attention is deaf to the suggestions to keep my life rolling forwards. Instead I hit every bump on the road, take every wrong turn and spend days broken down in the middle of it. So many lessons to be learnt and I’d rather cover my ears to the lectures.

Purple knuckles and bandaged hands, my guide on this trail of destruction that my family is pulling me back from. The frustration of unfairness. Why my father? Why this world? Why me? I am rocking about in a world that I do not belong in. I am claustrophobic to the fences that are keeping me inside, all this bouncing from walls and there is nowhere for the lava to flow when the volcano erupts.

A world two hundred years ago, likely ideal for me to let loose these performances. No more carrying fists but performing for the joy of another. All I can do is draw up a world from reality in my head and beg myself to not get mad when I realise it is all a lie. There have been so many occasions where I have woken up from my dreams in tears, reality knocking on my door and delivering me a gift of the truth.

Mother tells me to make the world my own, but I have no tools to do that. Another set of brushed away advice. Words that give me an opportunity to turn everything around but I am too damn stupid to improve. A mother who cannot even save her son, I can’t believe she still carries the smiles and utters the word proud.

Really, she is the only thing that I truly care for, she is someone to continue living for. Despite all the mistakes, she is always there. A disapproved look but it always turns around with a soft smile. She is one person to inspire to be, all the loss she must endure but she keeps fighting for the three of us. What a person to live by but I am so far away from everything like her.

Too much doubt is rotting my chances. I should really doubt my ability to punch someone square in the face, all this trouble would be far behind me than what it is now. I take the wrong opportunities, theft from the markets stalls and the mockery of peacekeepers. I am surprised that I have only ever served five lashings. Cockiness that lost me my job, father’s last action before his death was begging for my position back and yet I still work on the thin line with my boss. There are no more chances for him to give me.

All the people that have I let down but the improvement that is needed is so damn hard to find. I’ll be a trouble maker for life until it kills me. There must be something or someone out there to save me.