★ {JASPER KIPLING} ★ D7 [FIN]

Bury me softly in this womb
I kept this part of me from you
Sand rains down and here I sit
Holding rare flowers
In a tomb... in bloom

★ { n a m e } jasper edward kipling
★ { a g e } sixteen
★ { g e n d e r } male
★ { l o c a t i o n } district seven
★ { s e x u a l i t y } homosexual

Down in a hole and they've put all
The stones in their place
I've eaten the sun so my tongue
Has been burned of the taste

★ { a p p e a r a n c e }

My mother tells me that I remind her of a bird, lean muscles stretched taut over bones that can only be described as delicate singing of a spun-glass fragility that could shatter with even the slightest crack. My father doesn’t think so, deeming me of having more of a “kicked puppy” type look, while my brothers prefer “deer in the headlights” over the grace and tenuity such a picture as a feathered creature of the sky evokes. They're probably right, though, and my mother is just too caught up in that weird maternal tendency every woman seems to be plagued with, the one that somehow makes their children seem far more appealing than they truly are.

That has to be it, because I am nowhere near graceful – the perpetual bruises on my shins and scrapes across the smooth expanses of my palms can attest to that. It’s a well-known fact in the Kipling household that I was born with two left feet and ten thumbs instead of fingers, all bumbling awkwardness and limbs that never seem to be able to do quite what I want them to do. My mouth seems to have a similar tendency, mostly when I get nervous (which is quite often) – words crumbling into stuttered fragments as soon as they leave the tip of my tongue. If I’m a bird, then I must’ve fallen out of my nest when I was a chick and hit my head on something – hard – because I’m a sorry excuse for a graceful creature of flight. And I certainly can’t fly.

I’m tiny, if that counts - I dunno. I’m only about five foot four, with a slender figure that hints of a life spent teetering on the edge of poverty. There are other signs too, like the faint scent of cigarette smoke that clings to the thin, ratty fabric of my clothes and my hair - dark chocolate locks that stick out every which way no matter how many times my mother tries to attack it with a comb. My face is narrow, all smooth angles and the gentle slope of a delicate jaw line, probably the only part of me that can actually be described as bird-like. The slight pallor of my skin, visible even with its natural dark olive tone, speaks of years spent struggling in the throes of malnourishment and near-starvation, of cold winter nights when the chill was too strong and the sheets were just too thin. On nights like that, I curl up alongside my brothers on the old worn cushions of our single couch in a feeble attempt to keep warm. Smoking helps, too. I know it’s bad for me, but when the tips of your fingers start to lose feeling and each shaky breath is an icy dagger to your lungs, you find that you simply do not care.

My brothers and I, people tell us we look alike – all five of us. Same dark hair, same narrow shoulders and thinly-corded muscles. Our eyes, too – deep molten brown, so dark they almost appear black, and framed by heavy lashes. We each have the same crooked grin, the same straight nose and thin, lightly chapped lips, but the resemblance stops there. I’m the scrawniest, at least a head shorter than each of them, even though Toby is just a year older than me. I’m not all that strong, pretty much useless when it comes to swinging an axe or hauling a log. I have trouble finding a job, but that has less to do with strength and more to do with the fact that I'd probably sooner trip and fall into a wood chipper than actually get anything done. I guess you could say – and my father would whole-heartedly agree with this - I’m the weakest link in the Kipling family. And that's speaking generally.

I have been guilty
Of kicking myself in the teeth
I will speak no more
Of my feelings beneath

★ { p e r s o n a l i t y }

I’ve never really liked girls, never really went through that stage when a boy is just starting to notice the opposite gender and think things about them that they didn’t think before. Well, I guess I got to that stage, but it wasn’t girls I was thinking about. Girls always seemed kind of weird to me, too loud and too giggly half the time and dramatic and silly pretty much all the time. I tried to like girls, mostly because I somehow knew that my father would be disappointed if he found that his little boy liked other little boys, and I even got a girlfriend when I was twelve. We held hands and she talked a lot – I mostly just kind of stuttered and tried not to look her in the eye - and she was nice but I never really got that warm, fuzzy feeling I thought I was supposed to get whenever I was around her. She kissed me one day, pulled me back behind the school with the giggled promise of “I want to try something” echoing in my ears. And then she took my face in her hands and kissed me. I didn’t get that feeling then either – her lips were too soft and her scent too flowery and fingers too delicate, and everything about that moment just wrong for some reason. We kissed a couple more times after that, but it was always the same.

My first real kiss was when I was fourteen, and it was with a boy. He was another slum dog like me, a year or two older, smelled like cigarettes and pine and tasted kind of like liquor, but I didn’t mind. I think he knew I was gay before I did, and took it upon himself to show me. He took me back behind some pub somewhere in the middle of the district, told me he wanted to try something, but instead of cupping my face in his hands like that girl did he pushed me up against a wall and really kissed me, and I remember how my heart had been pounding in my chest and that his hands had been rough and strong and right and the way it felt when he pulled away, and how my head was spinning and I could hardly breathe but I liked it. He smiled at me then, and my heart melted, and from then on I didn’t pretend I liked girls anymore. He’d shown me what I really wanted; he’d shown me what felt right.

I never did see him again, but there were others after him. Always boys, always in some back alley where the shadows kept us hidden from accusing eyes, always just a few stolen moments of right that always left my head reeling and my whole body tingling. Sometimes I didn’t even know their names, but I guess that didn’t matter. I just wanted to feel that way again, feel the rightness of another boy’s touch. I don’t think I’ll ever to have more than just a few moments, though. I know how to kiss and I know how to make love, but anything more than that? I don’t know. I don’t know how to do anything more. I don’t think I can. I’m a creature of habit, and anything just one stray step outside my comfort zone leaves me utterly lost and confused and vulnerable. I can do those things that I’m used to, but making friends? Small talk or pillow talk or just hanging out? When things start to become something more, I freeze, and then I run. I run, and I don’t look back.

Down in a hole, feelin' so small
Down in a hole, losin' my soul
I'd like to fly but my
Wings have been so denied

★ { h i s t o r y }

If anything is true about the Kipling family, it’s that we’ve always been dirt poor, we’re still dirt poor, and we probably always will be dirt poor. My mother’s a sickly woman, much more "bird-like" than I am in that she looks like she could snap like a twig if the wind were blowing hard enough. When I was little, and my mother would often become ill and spend the whole day shut up in her bedroom, I used to fake being sick so I could keep her company. I think she knew I was pretending, but I knew she appreciated it when I’d come padding into her room after my father had gone to work and my brothers had left for school, climbing up onto her bed and crawling between the sheets to curl up next to her and wrap my arms around her waist. We’d spend hours like that, just talking and keeping each other warm until school ended and my father came home from work and the house stopped being just ours. Those were always my favorite days, those countless hours that I treasure even today. I don’t know why we stopped. I guess I just kind of grew up.

My dad has never been quite as cuddly. He’s always been a disciplinarian, more prone to stern glares than loving smiles, a very practical man. Traditional as well, which is probably why he doesn’t quite know what to do with me. When I first told him I was gay, he was horrified to the point that he walked out of the house and didn’t come back ‘till the next afternoon. My brothers didn’t speak to me either – they avoided even looking at me, ducking their heads every time I passed them by while I tried to ignore the pang of hurt that twisted in my gut every time. They got used to the fact that their little brother was a raging homosexual after a little while though, but my father never really did. When he looks at me, it’s as though he’s gazing right through me instead of seeing his son, and he pretty much lets me do whatever I want. I guess he’s just kind of given up on me. It kind of hurts, but I think I’m used to it by now.

I have five brothers, each uniquely annoying in their own special way. Bram is the oldest, and he’s a powerhouse. He may have that Kipling narrow frame, but he can haul pretty much any load dropped at his feet and does pretty much anything you tell him to do – like a machine. Eli and Levi are the twins, both prone to pranking and getting in everyone’s business all the time. They’re the hardest on me about my sexuality, and they have a pretty impressive archive of colorful words to call me to try and get a rise out of me. Toby’s the nicest, though – the most accepting. He doesn’t talk much, but sometimes I like just sitting with him in silence, kind of like how me and my mother used to be.

I guess I’m the awkward one, if I’m honest. I’m uncoordinated and I stutter a lot when I get nervous and I get embarrassed easily, and I'm hopeless when it comes to making conversation with people I don't know all that well. I used to get bullied when I was younger, but the threat of Bram’s iron fist was enough of an incentive for the other kids to leave me alone. I still get a few looks in the halls, though, a few whispered utterances of “faggot” muttered under the breaths of those who used to torment me in the schoolyard when I was little. I've learned to ignore it.

I’m not especially smart – average intelligence, I guess – and I don’t have very many friends, so there’s really nothing for me at school. I don’t like home much either, not when my dad’s home, so I spend a lot of my time just kind of wandering around the district. Sometimes I stop in bars or hang around outside them, hoping that some boy will find me and tell me what to do, because I usually can’t figure things out by myself. And then maybe I’ll have a few stolen moments of right with him, too, trying to capture and savor that feeling I get in those moments. And then, when those moments begin to stretch into a right that could maybe become so much more, I run.

Bury me softly in this womb
Oh I want to be inside of you
I give this part of me for you
Oh I want to be inside of you

★ { o t h e r } ★

★ { f a c e } rob moore
★ { s o n g } down in a hole by alice in chains
★ { c o d e } oDair