Re: Needlerun "Junk" Lambswool | {District Eight}

I don’t know what to say or when to start this because people judge me by what I look like. Tragic… what a joke! I wouldn't be able to resist me, heck, with my dark eyes and nice red lips. I just look tall. There’s nothing tragic about my messy hair. "Junk!" It’s not true, my ma, she never said anything like that. She and I have the same skin you know, well, we both are pale. My dad was darker, but I don’t look like my dad.

"Well I’d say it suits him, Junk is what he is, he and his chronic runny rose and watering eyes."

You know, it’s like they've never seen a poor kid from District 8 because they stare and stare and they get this look in their eyes, and I know what they’re thinking:

"That poor Lambswool boy is always looking so tragic."

"Have you noticed they’re always watering?"

“His mother says it’s due to allergies from the cotton, but I know better."

"Have you seen the marks on his arms?"

"Those aren't just thorn scratches… they’re needle marks!"

I’m a bad boy’s loving living dream and don’t you let anyone tell you I look a little skinny sometimes, I don’t look that skinny, no, I’m not that skinny… if I were skinny people wouldn't like me. No, the only dark things about me are my eyes and my hair. That’s all.

It’s the truth.

No, nothing, but the people of the District are always commenting, always fussing about something, and that something just always sort of happens to be something about me, always something to fuss about with them about me.

"Do you hear what that boy goes by?"

I’m weird looking I guess, but I look like a rebel. I know girls like that, even some boys like that. You know my skin, like my ma’s; it’s like milk like pearls, or something. I’m not really muscular but I’m lean and tall and handsome, at least that’s what my ma says.

I don’t really know what pearls are, but I think it’s white.

I’m not skinny.

Sure, black is sometimes bloody on white skin on my arms inside, but it’s nothing serious. It’s just part of me. Like my skin, and the dots that dot the inner arm of mine is nothing to be worried about. That’s all.

I think the girls of District 8 really like me; I mean, I’d really like me.

Honest, don’t listen to any of the others.

You want to know about my personality?

I was cutting cotton, you know, after school. The sun was shining down in the meadows like a giant yellow marshmallow spurting daisies onto the District. I was cutting cotton and I saw it, you know, it just seemed to be calling out to me.

I’m addicted to my sickness and I got to keep myself up, got to keep dancing with the sweetest poppies that I find. A dance with the poppies can last forever, and my forever is five years shorter already. I’m a mess, that’s what I am. I’ve had this… this… sickness for the past five years.

It started when I was thirteen. I was only thirteen. I swear, I would regret the whole thing if it didn’t feel… so great…

Poppies, tiny, precious poppies – who would’ve thunk?

Yeah, it was about then. I don’t know why I started, I just… aw man, and I know it really hurts my ma. I love her above everything… I love my sister too… the poppies whisper though, they know that I don’t love them as much as the poppies, but the poppies win in their eyes and I lose the two most important women in my life with every poppy… my dad?

He’s dead. I’m following his skeletal footsteps. I know I hurt my ma, and I hate hurting my ma.

Overdosed when I was 3, my ma was pregnant with my little sis… I swore I’d never… but I did… I did… and I regret this sickness… I regret it… but I love them, I love my sister and my ma.

Those are my favorite days, when I make friends – they are when I am the happiest… it lets me escape from the drab world that is District Eight.

She’s always been there for me, working two jobs, taking care of my little sister, keeping my sickness on the down low. I love them and that’s why I’ve taken out as much tesserae as I’m allowed… I have nothing going for me in this life. My little sister and my ma deserve to live a better life… more than I deserve to live.

I like being creative, you know? It’s fun. I spend my time in the District’s library. I’m happy there, it’s calm and comforting.

At least if I died in the games, my ma wouldn’t feel responsible... I dance on the edge of destruction – death doesn’t scare me. You’d be on the floor clasping at your slowly dying eye before you even saw my threading needle coming. Needles… oh, needles… so many needles… used and wasted.

I’m actually pretty smart… you know, all this gray matter hasn’t been affected too much by the sickness. In fact, at times, I swear it helps me get my creative juices flowing.

I’m sick because I don’t have enough willpower to quit.

I like to pretend that the characters in the books are my friends… and sometimes… I even do make friends with people from the library. Would it be so bad to die at the hands of another instead of in a bed of poppies? The shadier district workers sure thought that when they first let me try… it.

Yeah, that’s the sickness.

There’s not a lot of stuff to be creative about here, it’s mostly textiles and that kind of stuff. I’m clever, don’t worry about me – there’s nothing to worry about. I love my friends… or well the ones that remain. The Capitol is nothing to me, I am my person – they will never control me. I’m creative, I don’t think I’d be the best fighter but I’m smart. Fabrics, I like dying fabrics and weaving nice, beautiful things.

Blood drips on the floor sometimes, from my arms… to the floor. I’d outwit you if you tried to take me on in a fight.

I wish people could look past my… habits, my… sickness and just see me.

But that’s nothing, I’ve gone through worse.

I dance with the poppies of death already, let me go the Games.

History is simply man’s way of remembering one’s miserable moments – all of the miserable moments… must be remembered in order to… be miserable… why else would we remember them?

You know how my eyes sometimes look glazed over, like I’m not looking at you?

I don’t know, why I have to talk about this, I haven’t lived a history worth remembering.

Don’t get me wrong, my father wasn’t horrible, and he definitely worked as hard as his sickness let him work to provide for my ma, but he was so… distant, you know? Well that was him… all the time, he wasn’t… their… and when my ma held me tight that morning, I couldn’t say I was surprised.

Was I sad? My beautiful, wonderful mother married… him… and she had me, and our lives weren’t terrible, I was a happy child from what my ma tells me… but then… he, you know, started again. Long days being alone with my sister being taken care of by the… very wonderful woman next door, I can’t complain about her, and she never did anything funny… good woman.

Oh sure, sure, I was, but I knew he was dying… just like my sister was being born from my ma’s womb in a few weeks…

There she was, a widow, shamed by her druggie husband’s death… an overdose widow with two kids to take care of. I honestly don’t know how my ma did it, she’s strong… stronger than I ever could be. That was my childhood.

I spend the days reaping cotton out in the meadows, skipping school as often as possible… drinking poppy tea… praying for an overdose, praying for another day. I don’t remember what happened next, it was a blur of black or blue or purple and peace keeper robes that descended, like sleep does on a wary traveler… upon me. I’ll tell you as much as I remember. Yes… luckily, the seeds were rejected by my saintly, broken body.

My little sister knows, she’s just… is only… fourteen… she’s strong and beautiful, and is going to grow up to be just as wonderful as my ma. It’s the men in this family that were fucked up; we were the weak ones who fell into the tantalizing depths of the opium abyss. She took care of her while I was either in the cotton fields… I never was strong, but I was quick… and I was in school, being a smart ass.

“Get out of my head poppies! Get out, get out – out!”

The Peacekeepers sure don’t like me;

“Hey little Lambswool brat, better lay off the seeds, unless you want to be pushing them up from beneath the ground… just like your fucked up father.”

“You bastards!”

Oh, sweet, lovely poppies.

It was bad; I almost died, oh did I? You know, I’m overjoyed that I experienced death... so close, and so far... it made me realize that it hurts... but it doesn't for the person dying... and... that’s... that's comfort.

As the years progressed here in District Eight I fell deeper and deeper into the poppy fields... deeper into the seeds.

They had insulted my father in front of my sister... normally, I don’t care too much about my father, but I do care about the tears in my sister’s eyes... like poppy tears... falling from the buds in her... eyes, not buds. I had almost died.

If I kept I up I’d be dead before the Capitol could get me... was that the plan?

Death wanted to throw me a surprise party... and I wasn't going to stop it – I had never had a party in my honor.