district ten || kahinta maka jones

you talk too much
maybe that’s your way of breaking up the silence
that fills you up
but it doesn’t sound the same
when no one’s really listening

---

Kahinta’s life is made of moments.

Fragmented things, sharp and fleeting, cutting deep through her skin, deeper still to the very core of her and changing her irrevocably, and yet it’s the amalgamation of them all that keeps Kahinta Jones as she is pieced together.

Passing Mama rolls of wire to repair the fence on the outer edge of the farm, and peeling potatoes to half their size to avoid the rot, and telling Temple stories she makes with the birds that day that receive a quiet 'mmm, I liked that one,' in reply.

Mostly, they’re a haze.

The moments fade into half-truths painted with layer upon layer of faulty remembrance, rose-tinted vision and ignorance a lens that brings childish clarity to moments that were never meant to be clear. She spends nights reflecting on days spent carving pictures into the posts around their property and naming each new calf that’s born and picking stones to add to those ringed around the old tree out front, and then she wonders how much of her weight Temple had to carry for the sake of Kahinta’s daydreams.

Too much.

---

you have too much
spending all your time collecting and discovering
it's not enough
and no matter how you try
you never find the one you want

---

She learns not to smile with her teeth when she’s eight.

Hair carefully plaited into two braids that beat a rhythm against her back, Kahinta whips through the District Square without a care, flying past rundown workers and other children and girls older than her with their lips painted bright red. Her eyes never stop on them as she makes a beeline for a far corner, slipping between buildings with a delighted squeal as she hears the telltale rasping yell of Carridee Fischer from somewhere behind her. The threads of her brown sweater pull as she brushes against worn brick, blissfully unaware of the time her mother will spend mending the hole the opens along the right shoulder seam. Emerging into an alleyway, she takes all of two steps to dart deeper into the district before she’s stopped in her tracks by quiet mewling meows.

Her world narrows down to kittens in the blink of an eye.

By the time Carridee finds her, Kahinta has named all five of the kittens and has plans to smuggle them all to her barn by stuffing them inside her sweater. Their tiny nails are no match for her resolve.

The path back home is quiet and the clouds gather overhead as Kahinta picks up the pace. Carridee has long since branched off to find her own way home, one white and grey kitten curled up in her tiny arms. One of the little gray ones in Kahinta’s shirt (Pinky, named for her nose), is scratching up her chest and poking out the top against her neck with tiny, desperate sounds. The others wriggle helplessly against her stomach, sending her into a fit of laughter so strong that her mouth splits wide in a gummy smile, tears tickling down her round, full cheeks. She doesn’t hear the approaching footsteps, nor the quiet sniggers, but Kahinta is snapped back into the world by the whirl of an insult.

’Close your mouth, you gap-toothed cow. Nobody wants to see your messed up teeth!’

Standing before her is a small group of boys, the head amongst them standing with his arms across his puffed-out chest and his lips twisted into a satisfied smirk. She doesn’t recognize them, but from the way they look down at her, Kahinta can only guess they’re a year or two older than her. There’s only three of them, but she shrinks all the same, her laughter cutting short, her mouth snapping shut in a curious frown.

It doesn’t stay shut for long. Afraid or not, she’s never been one to step aside.

”My mouth isn’t messed up.”

They laugh, and Kahinta can feel her chest get a little tighter at the sound, sharp and biting. It’s not just the kittens clawing for purchase anymore, but her insides twisting with doubt.

’Who told you that, your mom? You know she has to say that because you’re her kid, right?’ the leader hisses, bending closer to sneer at her. Kahinta takes a step back, mouth set in a stable frown, bright eyes narrowed. Her stomach drops, though, as she takes in his words.

Is that how family works? She had thought she’d known. Family is helping each other with chores and curling up in the same bed at night and sharing food on lean days. Is family also pretending? Do mothers have to lie to you and tell you you were perfect as you are? Do sisters?

Her world suddenly feels very strange.

”It isn’t messed up. You’re just mean,” she declares after a moment, chin tilted up to meet his gaze. It’s a wonder her voice doesn’t shake with her uncertainty. She sounds sure in a way that she isn’t, her voice a clear tone in contrast to the quivering wreck inside of her. Despite the way her world has tilted on its axis, Kahinta is sure that she should not give a bully the satisfaction of seeing just how fundamentally he has changed everything she had thought to know.

As she walks away, the kittens continue to scratch at her chest, and her long black braids continue to bounce against her back. Kahinta pets Pinky’s little head with a finger and smiles with her lips sealed tightly together.

---

we stumble into our lives
reach for a hand to hold
any wonder we need to find
a certain something certain

---

At eleven, she wonders why she can’t seem to cross the gulf that separates her from her sister.

They’re having a rough year, and Kahinta’s losing her baby fat to hunger little by little, despite Temple pushing more of her own food onto her plate with each passing day. Still, her stomach sucks in on itself in a painful pang throughout the week as their rations run dangerously low, and she chews idly on the inner pulp of a downed tree branch she’d found in a snow bank by the western fence. The bitter taste makes her scowl, her lips pinched in as she continues to reattach some downed wire to the posts with shaking hands. Normally, Mama or Papa or Temple would be doing all the fixing, but a tree had fallen during the storm on the other side of the property and broken some of the posts entirely, leaving Kahinta with the smaller job of tidying up wire.

It’s dreadfully dull.

Her hands are sore and blistered later that night, and her body still trembles with the cold as she settles into the bed next to Temple. Settling isn’t quite right. She continues to move, legs kicking out intermittently to try and retain feeling, catching Temple’s legs across the bed. Though their backs are turned to each other, Kahinta hears her sigh as her foot catches the back of her knee, and she struggles to keep herself still for Temple’s sake. Warmth creeps in slowly between the sheets, but soon enough the careful breathing of her sister gives way to the slow, natural breaths of sleep.

Peace.

Turning to face her sister’s sleeping form, Kahinta reaches out a hesitant hand in the dark that has swallowed them whole. Her fingers skirt over rough sheets and a worn quilt to find the messy trail of Temple’s braids laid out across a pillow. Mama still does Kahinta’s hair, her rough fingers pulling strands back with practiced measures, but she can’t remember the last time she saw Mama braid Temple’s hair as well. One hand holds onto her own braid as she strokes Temple’s with the other, feeling knots and strays at each twist of the braid, and she wonders why her sister doesn’t get Mama to brush it and piece her back together.

She wonders a great many things about Temple that she fears she’ll never know, and she doesn't know how to change that outcome in the slightest.

How many times has Temple chewed at her cuticles until she has bled, only to brush Kahinta off with an ’it’s fine’ that doesn’t reach her eyes and barely seems to pass her lips? How many times has she walked into the house just before daybreak to Mama’s tired pleas to treat herself gently? How many times has Kahinta tried to bridge the span of years and words between them only for her attempts to fall on deaf ears?

Without any other viable options that she can see, she decides to stay the course. She'll keep telling Temple her stories, and asking her if she's okay, and touching her hair at night when she is given the chance to be as close as her sister will allow.

Kahinta falls asleep brushing her fingertips over Temple’s braids, and wakes to her leaving their shared bed long before night is due to be over.

---

turn out the light
and what are you left with
open up my hands
and find that they’re empty

---

On the eve of her first Reaping, Kahinta sleeps alone.

The sheets scratch at her exposed skin as she curls tighter into herself on Temple’s side of the bed, burying her head in her knees as she shakes apart at the seams. Once she’s as tiny as she can possibly make herself, she lets herself cry, hoping that the night will swallow her whole and grant her clemency. Her fingers scramble to find purchase in her hair, dislodging the careful pattern of her braids, but it doesn’t hold her together any tighter.

It could be her.

She’s spent years avoiding even thinking about it. Being ineligible had allowed her to stay carefully detached, had allowed her to pretend she was safe, but in the morning that net is drawn out from under her. Like so many before her, Kahinta will walk across the high-wire and pray she never slips.

In the morning, each action is carefully played, and she tries her hardest not to show that she spent the night awake and afraid of everything the future had to offer her. She eats breakfast, ignoring the way her Mama presses a little closer and Papa brushes her round cheeks with every passing chance. She bathes quickly, scrubbing at the dirt that always builds under her nails and behind her ears. She takes out the yellow dress, tying the faded buttercup sash with clumsy fingers around her middle and staring at a girl who seems to be so much more than her in the mirror, a girl who would stand tall and proud should her name be called and then never find peace in this life again.

That girl doesn’t get her name called.

Instead, it’s Temple Jones.

Without a doubt, she knows then that she’ll never see her sister again. It doesn’t make the pain any less blinding when it’s confirmed to her, confirmed to the district, confirmed to all of Panem days later. It’s a cold thing, tendrils wrapping tight around her stomach and forcing her to kneel as she tries to imagine all of the things she could say to Bette Sublino should she ever be given the chance. Instead, she finds a raw emptiness, an emotion that she has never felt in her life. It’s cavernous, and endlessly dark, and Kahinta lets herself soak in it until her hatred is all that she can feel as the sun gives way to the stars.

Her heart feels lighter when Bette dies, and in that instant, Kahinta knows she will never be the same.

---

press my face to the ground
i’ve gotta find a reason
just scratching around
for something to believe in

---

Kahinta’s life is made of moments.

Learning to smile with her mouth closed, and searching for a way to bridge the gap, and crumbling under the realization that her sister had killed and been killed for nothing. Burning the yellow dress without the sash that lies with her sister, and naming two new calves after fallen tributes, and wishing for a girl from one to die painfully.

The final cannon fires and Kahinta is overwhelmed with the weight of her relief, and her immediate shame. Cuticles bitten raw and hands shaking, she stands from her place at the foot of the couch and moves towards the open front door, unable to bear sitting inside with her parents any longer. Her papa is slumped in the corner, his eyes unfocused and red as he swirls his middle finger along the rim of a cup that has long since run dry. Beside him, her mama mumbles incoherently to herself, smoothing out her pants again and again until President Snow appears on the screen. His voice barely registers as she curls a hand around the doorframe, but before she can leave, her mama screams. She has never heard her mother make such a sound. In an instant, everything changes.

Everything changes, and she feels the moment her sister died slide free from where it had cut deep through her skin, deeper still to the very core of her and changed her irrevocably. It slides free, and Kahinta Jones as she is comes undone.

---

i just need something to believe in