audria erskine ❧ district four ❧ fin

dear father,

You never really cared, did you? In all of my sixteen years of life, I have never encountered someone quite as disgusting as you. From the time I was young to now, you've never stopped lying to me. You promised you would always be there, that you would never let me go. You weren't there to see the small bud of brown on my head bloom into dark locks. I bet you don't even know how long my hair is. (It's almost at my waist, by the way.) I weigh 125 pounds, and I am 5'9", and you didn't know any of that stuff because you didn't care to stop by. It's funny how you're always on my ass for not catering to your every need because I'm your daughter, I need to do what you say but when I want something, I just have to keep my mouth shut about it because I know I'm not getting it. How does it feel knowing that you are the absolute scum of the earth? And if there is someone out there much worse than you, I hope that they are learning to fix themselves. You don't seem to want to try. I can't wait until you're dead.

dear edgar,

Our family tree may say otherwise, but you are not my brother. You are always shutting your eyes, refusing to see. You are always covering your ears, refusing to hear my pleas for help. Whether this was because you don't want to assume responsibility over piecing me back together, or you just don't want to admit to yourself that your sister is in deep shit, I don't know. And I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure it out.
I remember when you used to fight on my side. Your eyes were always sharp as knives, polished until the metal seemed to glitter even in darkness. Mine were just beginning to rust, worn out from being left out in the rain a few times too many. Your tongue was barbed too; you waved it threateningly at anyone who dared come too close. It was after a while that your kisses started to feel like thorns cutting into my cheeks. You would always boop me on my nose, and you said it was my happy button because I could never stop smiling after you did that. Those playful pokes turned to sharp jabs in the stomach, and in the arm, and angry spitting of "Go away, Audria. Can't you see I have more important things to do than deal with you?"
And then you stopped speaking to me.
The silence was more painful than the insults.
When did you decide that I was the enemy? When did you decide that I was this mutt, this monster that you made me out to be? Or did you never make that decision? Did someone else make it for you?

dear mother,

You know how there are things inside your body that are supposed to keep the system in check but if there's too much of it it can poison you? Yeah, that's how I feel about you. I suppose you couldn't handle it when my heart began rebelling against my brain and I fell in love with Haia. You told me she did not love me, and that nobody could love a monster. You could not handle it when my entire system fell into anarchy, and you started to try and break me down so you could reign over it once more.
I remember bringing in morning glories from the garden and putting them in a vase in my room. When I came back, the petals had been cut up and scattered all over the floor. You replaced them with oleanders and said it was because they were more suited towards me. I asked what you meant and you did not reply. (Later on I read in a book that oleanders were toxic.) Now mother, I know I'm not as pure and holy as I like to pretend I am. I may lie, and I may steal, and I may be difficult, but I do not try to lure people in with my beauty and then inject poison into their veins. I have never tried to intentionally hurt anyone. All I am trying to do is survive. If there is anyone who is venomous around these parts, it's you. You and father. The both of you are completely, and utterly virulent.
Yes, mother, there is something wrong with me. I have hurt myself. I have hurt others. I am the natural disaster you say I am, you are not wrong about that.
But have you ever stopped to consider that there may be something wrong with you too?
After all, for a hurricane to form, there must first be a disturbance in the sea.

dear haia,

How are you supposed to let go of something that you had for a long time? Something you never should have lost in the first place? You seemed to let go easily. You uprooted gardens and scattered the petals in the wind. I stayed and watched them dance away, but you never looked back. You told me it was not worth watering a lawn that only grew weeds. I tried to tell you that there were beautiful things growing there; there were roses and marigolds and bells that shone in the sunlight. But you were blind; you allowed the darkness to consume you and cloud your vision.
I remember when we first met. I was five, and you were six. We were both out in the rain, and our families had been driving us mad. You liked the feel of the raindrops in your hands (you said it was like catching parts of the sky), and I liked the feel of the wind on my face. (It was like getting tiny kisses from an invisible queen, who loved all of her subjects.) Remember why we became friends? It was because we both saw things that nobody else saw. We both saw greater things, Haia.
(I suppose your horizons were never anything but gray.)
Soon enough I learned of your inability to recognize faces. propognasia prosprognosia prosopragnosia, they called it. You did not know me the first time we met after that day in the rain, and you did not know me for weeks. Soon enough you had learned to recognize the way I walked with my feet turned in and the way my voice jumped up an octave whenever I said your name. (It still does now.) Sometimes you'd look into my eyes and tell me they were like big copper seashells. I was crushed, over and over again, when you didn't remember my eyes the next morning.
There was one face you learned to recognize, and that was the face of death.
...you never told me you wanted to die. Why did you never tell me? You weren't afraid to tell me when you wanted to be friends. You weren't afraid to show up on my doorstep and tell me you loved me in front of my family. You weren't afraid to ask me to kiss you, even when they turned their heads and curled their lips in disgust.
...you wanted to die.
And you didn't want me to know.
I guess I should have seen it coming. In the winter when you helped me tie my scarf, you always tied it too tight. You wrapped your neck even tighter than mine, and you said it was a good feeling. You stole a pair of scissors from my house and came back the next day with your hair cut short. You said you wouldn't need it where you were going. You had a fascination with death and how it was brought about. You described in vivid detail how you wanted to end the lives of those who had troubled you, and how you wanted to be laid to rest. You told me that if you died young to wear bright colors to your funeral because you always hated the color black, and you told me exactly how I would get to join you six feet under. When I found the note in my letterbox telling me it's over I couldn't believe my eyes and I ran to your house to find out if it was true. I thought you were breaking up with me, that you had found somebody better, but it wasn't a new lover that had been found, it was you. I was the one who found you in the bathroom with a knife in your hand and a wound in your belly and clouds in your eyes. I couldn't hold you as you died. You were already gone when I arrived.
why why why why didn't I realize?
You, Haia Greenwood, are one of the most selfish people I've ever met. You can't just come into my life, take things from me and then just leave. I shared everything with you. My secrets, my thoughts - everything. At your funeral when I showed up in a bright yellow dress instead of a black one people scowled at me and said I was being disrespectful but they didn't know. When they lowered you into your grave I broke down crying and I almost dived in right after you because you were being taken away from me and you said you would never let anything tear us apart.
how could you how could you how could you how could you
...I'm so sorry I couldn't save you, Haia. I wasn't there when you needed me. Now, you are not here, and I need you.
I suppose what goes around comes around.
...a boy at school called me heartless once. He is right, because I gave my only heart to you.

audria f. erskine.