Love Like a Sunset [Yoya]
Jan 3, 2019 0:06:52 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2019 0:06:52 GMT -5
Quest Hertz
Don't break character
You've got a lot of heart
Is this real or just a dream?
Don't break character
You've got a lot of heart
Is this real or just a dream?
I’ll be fine.
Aside from the sutures still barbed out of my neck or the finger nubs on my left hand, I’m just the same as I was when I got here.
I wonder whether or not that’s what they wanted – for us to be put through this and wind up exactly where we started. There’s kids I imagine will go on living just as they had before or worse. Surviving death is like pushing a boat out off the dock. The current takes you and you’re on your way, no need to look back. Except here there’s the weight of all the choices you’ve made bearing down on you to eat at your soul, until you’re left brittle as an empty egg, ready to crack into pieces.
I think about how long each of us will actually live. You know – who in a year will I see on the news, hung themselves after all the trauma? Or will someone pick the wrong fight with someone, proving just how tough they were to survive and come back without all the pomp of victorship? I think about how in ten years at least one of us won’t be alive because of natural causes. Cancer or the like’ll swoop in, and carry one of them away. A little blip of life snuffed out the easy way. Maybe that’s worse, to get a second chance and have it snatched away because death put a hard end to you.
I don’t know.
I don’t feel like I know much of anything now. I used to think that dying would set a lot of things straight. That living in the world was too hard – having to choose between a miserable life with choices like ‘do I take a shit job or a shit job’, or ‘how will I live so I don’t get screwed over too badly by our capitol overlords?’ It was easier to throw myself in the games to push back against the system, but better yet, I could fucking die the way that I wanted, and then all of it would be over. No one else’s rules, no expectations to live up to, no more fighting. Just an end to emptiness in a spaceless place.
I’d built it up as something beautiful in my head. Death, I mean. Taking your own life is supposed to be an act of cowardice but it seemed like the most wonderful thing I could possibly do. The vainglorious death by someone else’s hands to shroud the fact that I’d gone in all along knowing I wasn’t going to win. Making choices that put me directly in harm’s way, to shield anyone else from getting hurt but to really see how much my body could be broken. What, you didn’t notice I was the first one to charge forward, to never apologize, and stick my neck out for the guillotine? Then what the fuck were you paying attention to?
There’s a second way, of course. After all the glimmer of the games fades away, and we’re left to pick ourselves back up again. To go back to our little towns, and houses, families that we choose or have been thrust upon us – and keep living. Figure out a way through the pain and deal with our shit. At seventeen, you’re a half-finished work of art, sitting on someone else’s easel. I like to think that my piece has mostly had my own brushstrokes. I’m luckier than most to be able to say that. I don’t pass the brush to just anyone to get to leave a mark or smudge; you’ve got to really earn it. But that’s the pain of childhood; we’re so desperate to be a part of other people’s lives while we’re figuring out our own, we fob off a pit of ourselves to people who might not be there for more than an instant. Have you ever thought about the kind of mark someone you wanted in your life made, only to have them disappear? And then you’re left with a splotch on your painting made by a nobody who doesn’t give a lick as to whether you get finished or not. Worse, give enough of yourself away and you won’t recognize what you are anymore – just a reflection of anyone else you’ve been willing to let hold the brush.
It’s not for me – to cry over what happened, or let what’s supposed to be the demons of the games get to change who I am. They’re all alive and, if I hadn’t tried to kill ‘em, I would’ve been here a lot sooner. I don’t feel the need to apologize – haven’t done much more than keep to myself this whole time – because I don’t think I need to. They’d get over it, or wouldn’t, but there wasn’t anything in my heart that was going to make them better.
So I give myself to the one person that might need me – if he wants.
Alongside the edge of the hospital room, along the wall, watching the machines whirr, I took a look at the kid that’s got more spunk than anyone could’ve imagined.
“Hey kiddo.” I started, forming a smile. “You got some fucking pair to get to where you did.”
*Be Still by The Killers
Aside from the sutures still barbed out of my neck or the finger nubs on my left hand, I’m just the same as I was when I got here.
I wonder whether or not that’s what they wanted – for us to be put through this and wind up exactly where we started. There’s kids I imagine will go on living just as they had before or worse. Surviving death is like pushing a boat out off the dock. The current takes you and you’re on your way, no need to look back. Except here there’s the weight of all the choices you’ve made bearing down on you to eat at your soul, until you’re left brittle as an empty egg, ready to crack into pieces.
I think about how long each of us will actually live. You know – who in a year will I see on the news, hung themselves after all the trauma? Or will someone pick the wrong fight with someone, proving just how tough they were to survive and come back without all the pomp of victorship? I think about how in ten years at least one of us won’t be alive because of natural causes. Cancer or the like’ll swoop in, and carry one of them away. A little blip of life snuffed out the easy way. Maybe that’s worse, to get a second chance and have it snatched away because death put a hard end to you.
I don’t know.
I don’t feel like I know much of anything now. I used to think that dying would set a lot of things straight. That living in the world was too hard – having to choose between a miserable life with choices like ‘do I take a shit job or a shit job’, or ‘how will I live so I don’t get screwed over too badly by our capitol overlords?’ It was easier to throw myself in the games to push back against the system, but better yet, I could fucking die the way that I wanted, and then all of it would be over. No one else’s rules, no expectations to live up to, no more fighting. Just an end to emptiness in a spaceless place.
I’d built it up as something beautiful in my head. Death, I mean. Taking your own life is supposed to be an act of cowardice but it seemed like the most wonderful thing I could possibly do. The vainglorious death by someone else’s hands to shroud the fact that I’d gone in all along knowing I wasn’t going to win. Making choices that put me directly in harm’s way, to shield anyone else from getting hurt but to really see how much my body could be broken. What, you didn’t notice I was the first one to charge forward, to never apologize, and stick my neck out for the guillotine? Then what the fuck were you paying attention to?
There’s a second way, of course. After all the glimmer of the games fades away, and we’re left to pick ourselves back up again. To go back to our little towns, and houses, families that we choose or have been thrust upon us – and keep living. Figure out a way through the pain and deal with our shit. At seventeen, you’re a half-finished work of art, sitting on someone else’s easel. I like to think that my piece has mostly had my own brushstrokes. I’m luckier than most to be able to say that. I don’t pass the brush to just anyone to get to leave a mark or smudge; you’ve got to really earn it. But that’s the pain of childhood; we’re so desperate to be a part of other people’s lives while we’re figuring out our own, we fob off a pit of ourselves to people who might not be there for more than an instant. Have you ever thought about the kind of mark someone you wanted in your life made, only to have them disappear? And then you’re left with a splotch on your painting made by a nobody who doesn’t give a lick as to whether you get finished or not. Worse, give enough of yourself away and you won’t recognize what you are anymore – just a reflection of anyone else you’ve been willing to let hold the brush.
It’s not for me – to cry over what happened, or let what’s supposed to be the demons of the games get to change who I am. They’re all alive and, if I hadn’t tried to kill ‘em, I would’ve been here a lot sooner. I don’t feel the need to apologize – haven’t done much more than keep to myself this whole time – because I don’t think I need to. They’d get over it, or wouldn’t, but there wasn’t anything in my heart that was going to make them better.
So I give myself to the one person that might need me – if he wants.
Alongside the edge of the hospital room, along the wall, watching the machines whirr, I took a look at the kid that’s got more spunk than anyone could’ve imagined.
“Hey kiddo.” I started, forming a smile. “You got some fucking pair to get to where you did.”
*Be Still by The Killers
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