haze, d2 {cbd2}

listen, i’m not like other girls.

not the heartbreaker, sleep around, party girl, steal your boyfriend bitch of a career i’m supposed to be.

not the smash your bedroom window and cut your tongue out silver-haired she-wolf that haunts your dreams.

not even the cry-baby princess of royalty born with a silver spoon in her mouth and french-tip fingernails clutching family jewels.

i’m just me. another face in the crowd, a forgettable namesake born with dreams of lost generations weighing on my shoulders. all it amounts to is an endless sea of nothing. it’s boring and mundane, and i like it that way. kicking responsibility under the carpet, breaking sacred promises of victor stardom an impressionable kid was told to follow. i thank my parents for the training - it made me strong in all the ways they never wanted.

i’m no victor, no. but don’t get me wrong, if you so happen to look my way you’ll wind up with a broken wrist at best. i don’t take shit; i don’t make friends.

i struck a deal with the mayor’s daughter on my twelfth birthday. a favour repaid: i don’t want to be reaped.

“no, i’m not fucking scared, do i look fucking scared?”

i’m not about to get my hands dirty.

“take my name out of the bowl, take my spot if i’m called, i don’t care, Strauss, just make it happen.”

she owed me her life, after all.

i’ll stand my ground and build my castle from the dirt up, on my own terms, without twenty three pairs of dead eyes watching my every move forevermore.

yeah. fuck that.