platinum {1} clarke || fin

P o p p y

I've always known the taste of blood, the rotten metal stench sticking to the insides of my lips and settling atop a churning stomach. I've always known the weight of a blade, fingers wrapped around cloth-lined hilts and forcing sharp silver into faux flesh. It was all mindless, senseless violence. There was more importance in training a child to kill than there was in teaching her to speak. My parent's love was to be bought, not with money but with blood and sweat and hours wasted beating upon the brainless.

I was never anything impressive. A petite child with hair settled in a rat's nest upon her shoulders, with clothes two sizes too large and shoes unlaced- perhaps I was asking to be underestimated. My chest was not broad, my legs were not long. In my parent's eyes I was nothing more than a handicap, born too small and too weak to do them proud. And so their love was always more than I could afford.

In the following years they tried to replace me, there were more names to remember- more children to shove into a gym and leave them them to raise themselves. I was not the first, nor was I the last, to be deemed unworthy by parents who hardly care enough to remember my name.

Platinum, a name as cliche in this district as John or Mary. Yet another gem, a jewel, a precious metal. In my parent's desperation to stand out they became as predictable as every other washed out career living vicariously through their spawn. As every other star pupil turned nineteen without a chance to become the next big human sacrifice.

I'm not stupid enough to think I'm any better than every other lamb raised for slaughter, but at least I know that's all I'll ever be. I find myself comfortable behind the scenes with a soft smile and eyes downcast. The shadows are the only spotlights I've ever been able to bear. They call me church mouse back home, some with smiles and others with sneers. At least I'll make a good wife, my mother insists as her eyes trace the failing grades printed upon wrinkled paper I'd tried to hide within the trash. The only thing I'm good at keeping my damn mouth shut, she reminds me.

My answer is always a smile, she needn't know the parties I frequent nor the boys and girls I've had beneath me. She needn't know the sins I've added with every notch on a worn belt nor the name that I tell them to scream.

I'm not my mother's angel. I'm not daddy's little girl. I am not Platinum Clarke- daughter of yet another prominent career clan and I'm certainly not skilled enough to have a knife against one's throat in a matter of seconds. I'm not dangerous. I'm not even anything but a high school drop out and a fraud.

They call me soft spoken, they call me mild mannered. They speak of a thousand different masks, all of which I have taken shelter behind at one time or another. So much so that I have found myself lost within this labyrinth of sheet metal and ice. I don't think I could remember who I really was if I wanted to.

But it's hard to hate a person I do not know. It's hard to pay attention to my parents' bitching when I can't even remember what that poor girl did to earn their ire. I've spent years building myself into absolutely nothing, into clay that I can mold however I see fit.

I call myself Poppy and even that is a lie.

There's nothing genuine left.

But I see a thousand others just like me. In gyms, in parties, even within the mansion I have always called home. We're a wretched, pitiful bunch- living the dreams of another while hoping to destroy ourselves completely in the process. If we become nothing there is no pain left to feel, it's impossible to be empty when you cease to exist. They look like me. I look like them. But we are all alone.

They call themselves by a thousand names. Soft spoken, outgoing. Silent and ear shattering. My friends are nothing more than pawns, an image to be kept and laughter to fake. They are more work than they are worth and yet I cannot be bothered to get rid of them.

I don't deserve to feel pain. I'm not a homeless girl in a tattered gown, sat on the sidewalk and begging for coins. My parents have never so much as laid a hand on me, nor does my family do more than taunt and jeer. A privileged career such as myself should be grateful to have a family with gold falling from their ears and countless different garments to wear- a gym in which to train and a place to hide from angry eyes.

I am everything anyone would yearn to be.

But I don't want to be anyone anymore.