{asphyxia 'xia' beaumont} three - [finished]

I hope that you see me
Cause I'm staring at you
But when you look over
You look right through
And I never felt so alive and so dead

appearance

Let's talk about bruises, and other various battle scars.

You know how a bruise changes colour over time? That's your body fixing the bruise by breaking down and reabsorbing the blood, which causes the bruise to go through many colors of the rainbow before it eventually disappears. You can pretty much guess the age of a bruise just by looking at its colour. I'm a rainbow girl, blotchy and broken.

At the moment, there's one above my right eyebrow. It's small, purple - that means it's new. Just a shade or two darker than my blue eyes - and I guess if you mixed my eyes with my dark brown hair, you'd get that colour. Two on my left arm and one on my elbow - green and yellow. 5 to 10 days of wear and tear. I think that there's a few on my back, because when I lie down to go to sleep pain rockets through my spine for a moment or two. There not as bad after a week or two, I suppose. After 10 or 14 days, they turn a yellowy-brown colour. 2 weeks since incident #109.

As for the rest of me - well, there's not much to say. My pale arms aren't covered in dotted needle scars. My teeth aren't rotting away, they're just a little crooked from childhood. I walk in a straight line with no problems - apart from my feet arching inwards. They said we could be twins, once upon a time, with our oval faces and freckles and laughter that screamed alive. We both have dark hair, button noses, high cheek bones. Pink lips, rounded features, smiles that stretch across our faces. So alike, so similar. Except I'm not crumbling away. Not yet, at least.

No walls can keep me protected
No sleep, nothing inbetween me and the rain
And you can't save me now
I'm in the grip of a hurricane
I'm gonna blow myself away

personality

Sometimes, I want to suck all of the oxygen out of this world. Consume it, let it fill me up, until I am not as light as air, but I am the air. Weightless, floating away, carrying only myself and the ones I love through the atmopshere. Everyone else's lungs can shrivel up, gasp for life - need me, for once. Beg and scream and snatch back all of their horrid words of me, of my brother, with fading energy and desperate claws of their hands. And I would no longer have this terrible burden upon me, inside of me, wrapping it's rope around my ribcage. Squeezing me tight, constricting me. Until I can no longer bear it, until I lunge for my brother once more, until I burst with pure rage at the ones who whisper words about him through slimy lips and plagued ears. Their petty remarks are the single spark that ignites a fire inside of me. Something scratches its way out, bit by bit, hollering and screaming for release. The need to help him, again and again and again, to defend him, to feel the hatred for the drugs that steal my brother away bit by bit vibrate through my clenched fist as it connects with their heads. Thus, the cycle is complete. I should tattoo 'Love' on each of my knuckles and spread it to everyone around me. I am every mistake I've ever made. I am every person I've ever hurt, and every person who's ever hurt me. I am every word I've ever said, and I am made of flaws. Pain means I love you and pain means I hate you and pain means I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry.

Inhale, exhale. It's a constant, rythmic function. Keeps us alive, keeps our brains from shutting down, our hearts from ceasing to pump, our souls from letting go. If I could breathe life back into my brother as his lungs begin to slow, I would give him a spare pair of lungs to last him a little longer. Oxygen is addictive. Like a drug. Without it, we will slowly shut down. I've seen the effects of addiction and it's not a pretty thing, but some addictions are less life-ruining. Like the addiction to routine, to making sure someone is ok. The anchor in your chest that drags you back to people you love, to people you care about. The need, the want, the constant must to clutch a fading light and hold him close. I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. Damned both ways, for I'll face punch after punch if I let him in, or go insane if I force him out.

Pressure bounds its way around my mouth, clogging up my nostrils and sealing my airways. Stretching against my lips until they clamp together, shutting the anger beneath me away. It suffocates me, again and again. So I keep quiet, keep it tamed, breathe through my nose and my lips closed tightly in a firm line. One day, I'll stretch too far and explode, like a balloon filled up with too much carbon dioxide. Its skin shrivelled and limp, lifeless. That'll be me, someday. Lifeless. My body rattling with too many punches until the last one cracks my shell. We watch on screens that seem to stretch out for miles, how one last slash, one last punch, one last hauling effort to kill, kill, kill finally knocks the life out of tributes bodies. I'm playing in my own Games at home, and I am the star of the show. The victor, every single round. One day, though, I'll have had enough. I'll crack, cave in, shatter like glass and bounce around on the ground with a thousand tingling echoes, life exploding into the air around me as I disappear forever. One day. But not today.

I'm gonna drink myself to death
I brace myself
Cause I know it's going to hurt
But I like to think at least
Things can't get any worse

history

'You're a mess, you know that?'