Sunrise Rainier, District Two

There's a mountaintop that I'm dreaming of
If you need me you know where I'll be

District Two
Sixteen

Yearning for the past is like twisting a knife in the present.

I’ve got snippets of memories that feel like an open wound. I remember days spent hiking up sunny hillsides, staring down at the world from up high, sitting at the edge of a lake in my shorts while I let the cool water drift over me. Now that I think on it, I’m not even sure that lake exists. It might have been a dream. I remember other things as well, like wildflowers in late spring, those bright colors popping against the backdrop of this dreary District.

I’m biased for the past. I know I am. The present is gray and there’s people my age who walk around with sneers on their faces. After school, they train to kill people they may never meet, and we all act like this is a perfectly normal thing.

It’s not.

Where did all of the kindness and beauty run to?

I could spend my whole life listing off the reasons I don’t feel like I fit anymore. I’m not a Career. I don’t like to see others hurt just because power makes people feel okay for a little while. Mostly I miss the days when I could scrape my knees and my parents wouldn’t say things like ”Better cover those up - that won’t look very pretty with your skirt.”

There’s a pressure bubbling up in my chest that’s bound to burst at some point, bolstered by the taunts and the ugly looks and the rude remarks wrapped up in politeness. I never wanted this to build up like it has, but sooner or later something’s going to give way. I swear I’ll rage against the whole world and all these bad things will melt away like a glacier roaring down a mountainside. A river of volcanic mud, not a fucking idyllic stream.

I’m angry, but I’m not violent. There’s a difference.

There’s a lot of things I’m angry about. I’m tired of being called pretty. I want to skin up my knees and let them bleed. I want to climb trees that are too tall for my parents’ liking, rip off the fucking skirt and toss it to the wind, spit the words ”I’M A BOY, NOT A GIRL” into the empty air. Nature is beautiful because we are one with it, and nature doesn’t make up so many rules about how I’m allowed to exist.

Nature understands that I can be a boy, and my name can be Sunrise, and these two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

The wildflowers welcome me into their arms, the lake beckons me to the shoreline, the hills whisper their simplicity.

Mom and Dad and Willow don’t understand why I get so antsy about the things they say. I’m overreacting, they tell me, and I know I’m not the gentle daughter they wanted. I’m nobody’s daughter, and I don’t think they understand what being gentle even means.

It’s… listening to the stuff I tell them. It’s letting me come home from a long day at school and wrapping me into a hug and telling me “It’s okay, you’re okay, we love you,” instead of questioning what I did wrong that made my day so damn difficult in the first place. It’s allowing me to dip my toes into the stream I love so much without worrying about the mud at my ankles. It’s kindness to those they don’t know. More than anything, it’s allowing me to be something they don’t understand.

In an ideal world, it’s loving me for being me.

They’re not there yet. I’m not there yet. The unrest bubbles down deep.

I am a version of myself that’s outwardly acceptable, because being someone I’m not is easier than trying to lift myself up high. I’ve got long hair that I want to pull out of my scalp and my body has the kind of feminine shape I can’t hide. I've tried for awhile, burying myself under too-big clothes and a demeanor that bites back when anyone dares to whisper the word pretty.

Standing tall and proud is difficult. I want to hide behind the fog of things that make me feel comfortable, shroud myself like clouds enveloping a mountaintop.

I do the things my parents like: I work hard in school, stay away from boys and their rowdy games, and I don’t venture too far from home anymore. I like to sing, but sometimes Willow tells me I sound like a dying pigeon. All my parents’ rules and expectations slid right off of me when we were young, but Willow absorbed them and I can only hope she learns to be kinder.

Somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the future, I know I will have to let the sky clear. I will have to shed the uneasiness and step into the day unafraid of the whether or not I fit in at all.

I think I was made to stand out. It’s only a matter of when, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?

To yearn idly for the future is to postpone it indefinitely, immobile as stone.