d7f amber bosch 🌿 finished

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

amber bosch 𖥧 seventeen 𖥧 district seven



“ I belong to quick, futile moments of intense feeling.
Yes, I belong to moments. Not to people. ”
― Virginia Woolf

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

the question stands:
who am i, really?

I am the daughter of a man who wakes at dawn and only returns home at dusk. In the mirror, I see his eyes staring back at me — forest green and earthy soil. His hands are callused, his face weathered and worn. He has worked as a carpenter for as long as my memories can process, a man who builds and creates for others while his own home creaks and rots. He is quiet, and kind, but so focused on the routine of his life. Most days he's already gone by the time I wake, and when I do manage to catch him, it's just long enough to see him kiss my mother's cheek before he's out the door. "He just doesn't know how to sit still," Mama said about him, once. "He'll work himself to the grave."

She said those words with pride, but even now, my stomach still twists from the thought of it all. He is a provider, and I am grateful that I have not gone hungry, but the idea that his worth is summed up by the amount of labor he puts in has always troubled me. I don't know what he loves about this world. The smell of rain? The sight of spring flowers? The taste of Mama's baked bread? There must be something that helps him to get out of bed each morning. But the older I become, the more I realize my family and I are that one reason. He moves forward because he feels it is his responsibility to keep us stable. I can't help but wonder what all he has sacrificed. He never seems regretful, never looks at us with rage or resentment.

But the silence is deafening. And the absence of knowing him is a knife between my ribs I can't seem to remove. As much as I admire him, there's a part of me that knows deep down that I could never be as selfless as him. Sun up, sun down, working my body to the breaking point. I love my family, I love the idea of the future me and her happy, domesticated life — but I have other loves, too. I am not my father: in the sense that I cannot bury myself for the sake of lifting others up.

🌿

I am the sister of three older brothers. Always held at a distance, always treated like some fragile doll moments away from toppling over the edge of a shelf. Mikey's nearing his thirties, Jared is twenty-two, and Camden's eighteen. They all like to act as if I'm so far away from them. A separate being. As if I didn't grow up playing with the same hand-me-down toys, walking the same dirt paths. "You'd hate hanging out with us," they insist. "And someone has to keep Mom company."

I can't deny that I am different from them, cerebral and quiet where they are reckless and brash. But the only thing I hate more than disorder is being told where I ought to stand. For the longest time, I used to envy them. Free to roam the night, sneaking away to meet their friends and always chatting about their romantic flings with lovestruck girls. There has always been a deep part of me that yearns for a connection — not in the way my brothers love, not at all like my parents, but a thing I still don't know how to name. I lock myself in my room, lose myself in dust covered books I've already read too many times, and I fantasize about a prince who will come to sweep me off my feet.

While I dream, they live their lives. Each of them works at the lumber mill, and each of them seems so sure of themselves. Smug smiles, boisterous words, perfectly content with who they are. I used to wonder if that would make me happier than I am now: to skip school and get a job, come home late in the day, only care about myself and my own fickle desires. I can't seem to make that choice. Mama needs someone, I hate the idea of her being alone in this house from the break of dawn all the way to midnight.

But where does that leave me?

I can't be selfless — but I'm not quite able to be selfish, either. Stuck in purgatory, straddling a line where I can't seem to figure out which side to stand on. I set the dinner table for Mama, I look down at my smooth palms. Maybe this is just the lot in life I inherited. To remain, to maintain, to be still and silent and grateful. But the longer I stay trapped in these four walls, I think I might just disappear.

🌿

I am the daughter of a mother I have watched vanish for the last seventeen years of my life.

It goes without saying, I love her more than anything in this world. But I have only ever seen her in this singular light — the sun streaming through the kitchen window, her dark hair tied in a knot atop her head. She works as tirelessly as any of the men in our house, but she'd never let you know it. Dad might keep the house stocked, but it's Mama who makes sure we're fed and cared for. When I was a girl, she'd tuck me into bed, listen to me ramble on and on about all the miracles I wanted to happen to me. She just smiled, and ran her fingers through my curls. Never once did she make me feel silly for wanting more than what I had.

But I had to wonder: did she have miracles she hoped for? Was this the dream she had when she was my age? Something about this thought, even to this day, hurts me down to my soul. Because there are days when I'm walking to school, and I see the well off kids traveling in their packs wearing their clean clothes, and I think to myself: I want to be part of that world. I've never told anyone but Camden, a late night spilling of secrets, but I have this little fantasy that one day the mayor's son might notice me. Might see something worthwhile in me. Is it cruel? That I'd trade this life my parents sacrificed everything for to have one of privilege?

🌿

I swallow down my dreams until it feels like I'm drowning; I stare back at the puzzle pieces of my father and mother looking at me through the mirror. Not once do I approach Fraser Birk with my affection, not once do I ask my father what he wanted out of his life before he was stuck with us, not once do I urge Mama to want more for herself, not once do I try to stop my brothers from distancing themselves. I simply smooth out my dress, trying to district myself from my everyday anxiety and reminding myself that today is a day of true terror. People have it so much worse than me. Children are dying annually.

I stand in a crowd of people I do not know, and the same question that haunts me daily pounds inside my head.

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

"Amber Bosch!"

On this day, I learn I am a girl sent to die.

[d7f amber bosch 🌿 tris]

a lil pinterest board for fun ♥
finished & ready to go!!

10th retro gm | paxton hayes [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

accepted x