metaphysics of the literal heart; shelby

I have got two hands made of tarnished gold, and neither of them works in my own favor any longer. I’ve polished their surfaces one time too many to count and watched my skin glimmer in their wake for a second past the initial endearment. Galaxies painted on my skin only last long enough for me to feel the after effects of the fire—

When a star dies, it explodes violently and vehemently, never giving a second thought to the space it leaves behind in its wake.

I was the sun once, all bright and burning and never afraid of the aftermath.

There was not a moment’s hesitation in a single step taken; I’d dance around my sister’s grave like there was nothing lost in the space between her bones and my heart.

Oh, how broken glass and bleeding knuckles had shown me the side of my heart I had for so long been lusting after.

Here— away from Eight and my sister’s grave— I do not dance on tombstones or stand on the ledges of gold balconies. Here, I am nothing more than a skeleton with bones made of other’s blood and thoughts— just like everyone else, if the skin is stripped away I have nothing to hide behind.

Names carry more significance than anything else in this place yet I have not become familiar with my own in the wake of my sins. I seldom speak first anymore, simply hold out my hand as painted lips and false smiles say it for me— “Shelby Leviane, victor.”

The first time or two I attempted to correct it— “It’s really just Shelby, or Shelby Leviane.”

But any time I let simplicity fall from my tongue I was reprimanded— “Why, you cannot just be Shelby. You killed six people and outlived over fifty other people. You must be some sort of a victor— some sort of proud.”

Pride and guilt have become synonymous and I have been constantly swimming in them both. If I try to drown myself in either a foreign hand takes me by the neck and pulls me back to the surface, reprimands me, and throws me back to the river.

I’ve got no rights or wrongs any longer; there’s no moral code I am obliged to follow.

It is for this reason on the train back to the Capitol with a boy and girl sitting across the table from me that I did not care to speak. Before they could sit I had taken the bottles from them and drained the contents into my own glass.

A metaphor really— when had I not taken the soul from others to be used of my own accord in its place?

I had not introduced myself, for the need for formalities here was gone.

I did not ask them for their names, for attachment was a deadly trait and everyone I have known I have lost in some way or another.

I would have rather handed them body bags and been done with the ordeal, but instead we sat in silence for half an eternity and pretended that our hearts had not been left far behind us in District Eight’s city hall.

Mine was there still beating on the floor, all blood and no love on the day that Cha Leviane had volunteered to save a girl she had not known.

What’s the point of trying to know a single person if you are willing to throw away your life for a stranger?

Pass two weeks to the start of death row and you are left with twenty-four bodies lacking souls of their own. If they have anything inside them, it is nothing more than an empty vessel that they wish to fill with others’ blood and half-assed glory.

I’d rather be an empty vessel / I think I am an empty vessel.

With a first day now coming to pass I sit in sequester, alone with a quiet mind and a bottle of gin I had managed to slip by Adessia. She disapproved of the habit but never made the attempt to halt anything of the like that I did. Another metaphor, I suppose. People here do not seem to understand the value of action, but rather would choose to speak in words made of rust-coated metal and lined in gold.

My tongue dripped gold now as I took a drink straight from the bottle as the starting gong had sounded. Passing in the space between my fingertips, I watched carnage fall lightly with two cannons left to sting the air, and it’s only until metallic voices speak of District Eight that I realize the boy has fallen.

I did not know his name— how should I mourn for him?

No longer delirious I sit in silence, straight-lipped and disillusioned as Adessia finds her way through the door, “Are you alright, Shelby?”

I shrug, set the bottle on the floor beside me, and turn a raised eye to meet her, “No different than yesterday.”

Pass another twenty-four hours and the girl is dead too.

“Are you sure that you’re alright, Shelby?”

“No different than yesterday.”

No different than yesterday / No different than dead.

What’s a body without unique bones and a soul without a purpose?

There’s no point in marking the grave if there is no one left behind to dance on it.

I say I’ve got no purpose but I know I long to go home; to dance on the graves of Cha Leviane and the two I escorted here. I will not look at the tombstones because it will not mean anything, but I will dance. I will dance like the sun is still a burning star within me because it reminds me of a time that I was not afraid of the aftermath.

The death of a star is reveled / The death of a star is awe-inspiring.

What comes to pass afterward is never discussed / What will come to pass now is not to be discussed.