☼N e p t u n e C h o i☼ {Done} D4

N e p t u n e

18

☼☼☼

Underneath the skin there's a human
Buried deep within there's a human
And despite everything I'm still human

they say blood is thicker than water.

But everyone who knew what my mother is- what she was- swears to god that that isn't true. I do too.

She wasn't the type of monster that you'd pray you'd never find under the bed, or in your closet- no. It was never that simple- it never could be that simple. She was something you would never be able to stomach but I always could because blood was thicker than water. She's in my veins- she's in the very liquid that makes me move. And I don't think I feared her because she was in my life for a few years before she choked. I feared her because of the very definition of genetics and what it meant for me.

And before the day she left this earth with a hand-sewn noose around her neck  I never understood what it meant to have the same sickness that she did- to be driven by passion. She would have been a great Career. She would have been a great Career- that's all District Four could muster up as a goodbye to her; to me. They said goodbye to me  to because they thought I'd end up hanging myself too- because I'd end what my family was since the Dark Ages.

"Passion, Neptune? Why are you lying to yourself? What that woman was was a fucking psychopath. Happy one day and sad the next. And you're going to be just like her-" SHE WAS ALIVE. SHE WAS FUCKING BREATHING LIKE THE REST OF US. And I couldn't appreciate what ups she had until I found maggots eating the remains of her apple pips for eyes as she hung like a chandelier in her own bedroom- like a fucking ornament. i told dad we should have checked on her but he said let her be alone for a couple of days, and I was too scared to check if she was alright. It was natural for her not to eat or come out of her room for days but. . .

i should have checked on her. i should have checked on her. i should have checked on her- OH GOD I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED ON HER DAMMIT. But I was too afraid- the old me was thin-skinned. Small, gangly (i still am fairly gangly). Weak.

Now my father refuses to meet my gaze because all he can think of is my mother. Out of all of my siblings I am the ghost of our mother walking the house- small, pink lips and a pale and slender frame. But to him, I was a walking bag of bones; with every step just a creak and a crack. He never really speaks to me anymore- told me he couldn't stand seeing my face.

I remember trying to get her down from the ceiling about a week later because we all didn't know how to cope with the loss. My stomach knots up as I wrap my fingers around her cold neck, attempting to loosen the noose. And the whole entire time I'm gagging at her stench. We could have called the Peacekeepers to do it but I refused to have them handle her like some sort of baggage. Mercury and Venus didn't want to touch her because they found the sight disgusting. But I didn't mind. They thought I was sick and psychotic because I had enough strength to bear the pain and the sight of seeing the woman who gave birth to me at her lowest point. Even so- in her actions- she had audacity and eloquence. Mother knew I was stronger than most people. I felt a rush of pride when people told me I reminded them of her with her 'fire'.

They just didn't want to say the disease reminded them of her. And I'd be fine with that if I didn't know how they truly felt- like they really cared about the high arches of my eyebrows and how long my dark hair is. My small hands and how the pinkie on my right hand was crooked like hers. Calm yourself Neptune, Breathe.

That's why I was the better Career than my family members. I was no Cinderella story; my father and my siblings did not trap me in a closet or slave me around our small house. But I was told that I had to get my own food and get my own clothes because it was a privilege to stay in his house after my mother died. And I did what I was told to do because it was better than to go quietly then be beaten senselessly by my father. He broke my nose a couple of times, because I'm supposed to be he example in this goddammed house- like he wans to erase any and every trace of my mother. Oh well.

The Lower Districts are misinformed. As fortunate as the Choi family is doesn't mean you can use that as excuse in life and let it determine whether you win in this life or lose. In a sense, I have nothing- not after my mother died. I work to earn my keep, now. Sometimes it means that I have to sleep around, or steal- I CHOOSE MY DESTINY. NO ONE IS GOING TO DO IT FOR ME. And I hear the whispers- the repercussions of my actions- all around me. To me, there was no I am too poor to own my destiny. I deserved to create my own instead of living under a broken family's shadow.

Mother always told me there was no shame in my game. I am as stubborn as it gets, and that was never a bad thing. But when my drive didn't get me where I wanted it to take me, I got. . .sick. My stomach would knot up and I just didn't feel like speaking or eating. I don't know why.  Yes you do. Yes you do.

For those that do not feel the pain of losing the little fights, you don't deserve to be a Career. You don't deserve to have the title handed to you like some birthright because those before you worked to the bones to rip it from the unworthy. People don't know what a Career is- they don't remember that the Dark Ages brought. To be a Career was to survive; to make sure you were prepared to defend yourself. 

 To make my parents proud. Keep the family legacy going-bullshit. Kids don't understand that your life starts after your eligibility for putting your hand in a little glass ball every year has expired. Life is mom and dad not wanting you in their house because you have been deemed a failure after you sucked themselves dry. Life is being hungry and poor, then making something out of yourself.- telling everyone won't change anything. IT DOESN'T MAKE YOU SPECIAL. MOST OF PANEM IS LIVING JUST AS YOU ARE.

Life Thu Hunger Games

It's a beastly sport, and in such, you are either the beast or the prey. A real Career does not train because they enjoy seeing heads roll; they train because they want to have a chance in life. They want a real family- they want survival. I don't know if anyone understands that anymore, but I do. I do.

The suffering to feed myself and fit into the Training Center is not all in vain. It's down-payment. It's an investment and my District doesn't understand that. When it closes down and everyone goes home, I'm still outside jogging- pushing my body in the cold and throwing up. Mercury and Venus are sleeping soundly in their beds, swearing that they are willing to do whatever it takes to win. I AM HEAVING OUT MY LUNGS TO LIVR WHEN THE WHOLE DISTRICT IS ASLEEP, AND OTHERS STILL HAVE THE BITING NERVE TO TALK ABOUT THEIR GREATNESS- THEIR GOD-GIVEN ATHLETICISM.

And I would have been just like them, but I made due with what I was given. These kids I see now in the Training Center couldn't stomach me if they tried. They couldn't stomach what I'd do to them in the ring.

It isn't personal, though. It's genetics.

Daddy was a bastard and Mother was a tough, bipolar bitch.

they say blood is thicker than water

Sometimes I just can't control how I feel

Shades of anger and shades of grief get the best of me  {3d618b}

Others do too {2e4d70}

I don't feel like I'm the one talking at times, but I am  {20344a}

odair.