Cerese Opague- D8 [complete]

Dear Child: You may want to know what your parent looked like in their youth. At one time, as strange as it may seem, I had quite a young face, before it was weathered down by the worries of the world. I was the very definition of androgyny, and I loved its freedom. My eyes were constantly narrowed and green, the first signs of bags starting to appear beneath them. But it could have been worse. I didn’t like my nose, to be quite honest, but nobody ever does. It was a perfect triangle, yet it seemed birdlike to me. I didn’t like my eyebrows either- too bushy. I could have spent some money on tweezers, I suppose, but all my personal facial care money (of which there was few) went to trying a variety of solutions to make my neck-length hair as white as the snow itself. I succeeded in the end, to my poor mother’s dismay.
Thank god I was blessed with good skin, though I often looked like a hermit, I was so sickly pale. Yet, I thought that, in general, my looks were handsome. My build, however, was something I despised with the burning passion of a thousand suns. It was stocky. Curves in all the wrong places came as natural to my body as breathing. Every time I looked in the mirror, I cried. With your birth came extra weight, and only increased my figure, though I do not blame you for this. Thank god I had made a chest binder for myself, because I don’t think I could have stood it otherwise. I was about 5’1 in high heels (not that I could have ever worn them), but oh god, could I run.

My dear child, people had a tendency to say I was over dramatic and too sensitive! Can you believe such a thing? Then again, people do gabber on so. Some may have said I had a cynical world view- I called it realism. Oh, but I did have hope for the future. Our future lies in your hands, child. You may be a bastard kid from the District 8, but you will be intelligent. I was, though I did not often think so. It is only when I reflected on myself did I realize this.
You know what the problem with me was? I was impulsive, and thought with my heart, rather than my head. I was the very personification of going with your gut. And there was the fact that my attention flitted around easily, never quite resting. I was depressed as well, with panic attacks galore. I had a fun life, child. I could be quite sarcastic as well.
My sense of humor was rather peculiar, favoring the morbid side of life. And there were plenty of puns as well. I could tell if I had made a good one if at least two people groaned. Speaking of people, they’re quite curious creatures. I tried to be sociable, but it never quite worked. Maybe I became too clingy. Or just the polar opposite. Or maybe I was too loud or blunt. Whatever it was, I favored the black sheep most of all. Perhaps that was my biggest flaw in the end.

There seems to be a long line of bastard children in our family. My mother, Lamé, was a single mother from the very beginning, as my father, Rasputin, abandoned her when she was 19 when she told him she was pregnant. She was determined to raise me though, bless her soul. I was an April child, if that matters to you at all. Although this was natural- I was a premature birth.
From the very beginning, it was clear I had an aptitude for the arts, filling my mother’s head with stories and poems of lands far away where food was fresh and the water wasn’t orange. She loved hearing them, whenever she could. She worked in the factories, like most. Very long hours, you see. From the time I was 7, even I had to put in hours after school at one of the many textile factories. Not that it was any worse than school, which was a living nightmare for me. The teachers were reasonably okay, but it was evident from the very beginning that I was a kinetic learner. And district schools don’t exactly cater to that type of learning. Most of what I learned came from grizzly old drunk men. I used to show them my poetry. That stopped when Thom Backhold vomited on “The Ladybug’s Dance”. I found solace in reading, however. And not just the schoolbooks.
Every district has its own scum. For District 8, one of the scum was a woman in her 30’s who went by the name of “Nyx”, and nothing more. She sold things to a select few, as long as they didn’t ask where it came from. She was the closest thing I had to a grandmother, being that I lived two blocks from her. For a price (mostly earned by begging at the doors of the wealthier officials), I bought rare books. I became a sort of collector, though it was hard to have a collection with only four books in it. And for a while, that was my life. Reading. Begging. Stealing. Work. School. And it was a damn good one for a street rat. And at least I had a mother who supported the fact that I didn’t seem to fit into a specific gender. But that good life ended when I was 15.
It was late when it happened, after a grueling shift where I had worked overtime, a pain in my back and calluses on my hands as I trudged through the streets. Suddenly, I realized that they weren’t my streets. I had gotten lost while I had been disoriented. Fear overtook me, especially when I could hear footsteps behind me, and a wolf whistle. The next thing I knew, I had a knife at my throat and I was being dragged into a house. I yelled, I screamed, I kicked, but it wasn’t enough. What happened that night was terrible. But it brought about your birth, so I don’t know how to feel about it exactly. Am I villain or victim? Or both? I blame myself. I shouldn’t have been so careless. My torture went on for an eternity until I lost all feeling inside. As quick as the knife before, my attacker, whoever he was, put a rag to my mouth and nose, whispering “Thank you”. The next thing I knew, I was laying in an alley.
I sobbed for days. I still am. But now, only a few months ago, you were born. Even though I may have to give you up in the end, I am so glad I have known you, young Pentaton. This diary is to guide you through life.