esther morrigan // district 3 {wip}

Everyone needs an optimist in their life. Somebody to make their day ten times better, to bring you up when you're sinking to the ground. Everyone needs someone to make them laugh and smile even when they feel like dying, to comfort them in their times of need. I am that friend, that person who will make your day better by just a simple smile. And I like being that kind of person. I just wish there was someone like that for me. People are always caught up in their own problems, and just ask for others to comfort them without really realizing that the person they want the attention and comfort from has their own problems. And I am a troubled child, and I have issues just like the next teenager does. I'm always there for my friends, but they're rarely there for me. I just wish someone would be there for me in times of need...how many times do I need to repeat that? I need someone. I need someone. I just need a person to pick me up when I am down. If I had a pen and paper right now, I'd be writing that down as a poem. There, you've learned a hobby of mine. Poetry. I love to do it in my spare time. It takes my mind off the troubles of life, the problems I face. But of course, I must be optimistic. It's only in my character. Esther Morrigan, the optimist. I have a reputation and I need to uphold it.

But sometimes it's so hard just to uphold it. Reputations are such fragile things, so delicate, damaged at the slightest touch. Which is why I'm keeping mine safe, so nobody can mess with it. Because the last thing I need is a damaged reputation. Broken beyond repair. Some people I know have those types of reputations, and are shamefully shunned by others. I join in, because, as I say, I must uphold mine, and I am stronger than them. I am unbreakable. I am free. That's just so hard to believe when I'm curled up on my bed, sobbing into my pillow. I have to change my own pillow, or place one under the other. To hide my tears, my weakness, the only thing holding me down. Because no one, and I repeat no one, can see me in that state. I am Esther Morrigan, and I am always cheerful and happy. No tears. Not once in my life. I never get angry or throw things or break friendships. Somehow I stay friends with everyone and nothing makes me change. I like that version of me as much as everyone else does. It's just not reality.

Reality is, I am a fragile object. Has to be handled with caution, only people don't anymore. They're so blinded by what they see at face value, they don't read between the lines. They used to treat me with respect and caution, like any normal human being with emotions. But since they realized how cheerful I am, recently they've been a lot worse. Nobody takes any care anymore. Nobody. They push me to my limits, trying to make me angry. But I will never allow them the satisfaction. Never will I ever give up, because I may be fragile, but I can be a fighter when I want to. And people underestimate me, a lot. They think that if I get reaped for the Hunger Games, I'll go down really quickly because I just can't fight the others. But I can. And I hate the Career districts, the ones who are fierce and allowed to show it. I envy them, with their muscles and their strength and brutality. I was born into the wrong district. I belong somewhere else. I don't even belong in Panem. I belong far away, beyond the borders of our nation, in a poppy field somewhere, in a cream coloured floaty summer dress and a straw hat blocking the Sun from my eyes. Alone but free. That's what I deserve, and it's what I know I deserve. And nobody can take my freedom away from me. Not even the Capitol.

When I look in the mirror, I see the girl I'm supposed to be. Esther, with her coal-coloured hair, like she hails from District Twelve. My face, smooth, my eyes, so dark they're almost black. But aside from all the darkness of my face, my skin is quite pale, but a nice kind of pale, not like a dead person, where the blood has stopped pumping around their body so they go pale from lack of it. The weather is okay here in Three, and I get a little bit darker in the summer. My teeth aren't exactly perfect. One of them is spiked, just like a fang, sticking out on top of my gum instead of under. A little higher up than the others, and a bit more stuck out. People make fun of me because of that tooth. That one tooth, that ruined my appearance on my face for others. But it's okay, because I will keep smiling, because that's what I do. My hair has a fringe at the front, swept a little more to the left than the right. (That is, your left and your right.)