d1f: october rhapsody fray

[d1f october rhapsody fray ❁]

o c t o b e r     r h a p s o d y      f r a y

o c t o b e r      r h a p s o d y      f r a y

.  .  .

district one. fifteen years old. 

(what a real fucking legacy; to leave) 

tortured starlet, drama queen, old money.
attention whore. unreliable narrator.
made to be seen. born to be adored. performance artist. 
victim of the wrong generation. miswritten main character. 
afraid to be forgotten. 

(listen up)

[d1f october rhapsody fray ❁]

o c t o b e r      r h a p s o d y       f r a y

o c t o b e r      r h a p s o d y      f r a y

 the crown is stained, but you're the real queen
flesh and blood amongst war machines 

. . . 

if i'd been born in another time, i would have been really something. 

they've always told me this; old women on the street, pinching my cheeks, the  neighbours, my own mother. always those who saw the before times, always said wistfully, with the suggestion that i had been robbed of whatever this imperceivable quality would have granted me, back when we lived in the old world. 

in another life, they said, everybody would have known my name - my face would have been the fixture of billboards and silver screens, i would have blown air-kisses to screaming crowds and commandeered sell-out stages. the rebellion stole many things from many people, and from me, it took this. nowadays, nothing is sacred. 

the beforetime is, largely, a secret from me. it is uncharted territory, the place i am from and yet do not remember. i entered the world on the cusp of change, my foot in the door, everything about to come crashing down. they won't tell me much about what it was like - i think it hurts them to remember. they tell me only that then, there used to be something called potential. from what i have managed to piece together, this was a golden ticket, a key for an innumerable quantity of doors, a superpower that granted wishes. it was reserved only for the prettiest of little girls.

i am agreeable to the idea that i have suffered. i am not like the others. i do not move through the world with the same mundane indifference, the same small dreams, content with the dreary reality of our district. while my childhood friends sought to follow their parents into metal mining or the production of goods, i languished, dissatisfied, sure that there was something bigger out there for me. i was certain one day somebody would find me, pluck me from obscurity, see the potential plastered all over my face and take me far away, to be really something somewhere else. truly, nowhere would be far enough.

i was not built for this. perhaps, they set me down in the wrong place by mistake, and really i was supposed to go to the capitol, grow up with at least a chance at my destiny. while i wait for my big break, i go to school, angry at time for passing incorrectly, desperate to been seen, to be known. mother says i mustn't make a name for myself for the wrong reasons, but it all feels the same, to me. why does it matter what they're talking about? so long as they never stop talking about me. 

. . . 

i brush my teeth for twice as long as i am supposed to. i dance until i collapse; i sing until my throat is hoarse. i write poetry, lead hunger strikes in the cafeteria, kiss every boy in my class, if they want me to. i am tireless. once, i climbed onto the roof of the school and refused to get down until they had my father come and get me. i have a thousand friends and a thousand enemies. i throw parties, i provide the drinks, my mother crucifies me when she finds the evidence. we have a good name to uphold. i am restless, i am relentless; it is never enough. i may have the family name to uphold, but i have my own name to carve space for amongst the rest.

it is not something the others will ever understand, mother says, because they aren't like me. they do not have the really something that i have. the fray blood does not run in their veins, a stronghold of wealth and success that can endure even the most turbulent of times. their prophecy, unlike mine, is not unfulfilled. they are the lucky ones, i am sure of it, for unlike me, they have not been wronged by the modern age. 

at school, they teach us about history. they do not teach us about the wonderful things, the things that mother has passed me in fragments and whispers - movie stars and awards shows, opera and decorum, finery and bottled fragrance - instead they paint a picture of war, depict a thousand wrongs of a restless age, draw a line in the sand with mistakes on the other side. they tell us of a thousand soldiers from both sides buried in the rubble, faceless, nameless, resting forever in unmarked graves. this has happened since the world began to turn, since the times of shakespeare and julian ceasar and the beatles, billions and billions of other men and women who left behind them nothing much at all. the textbooks do not mention them. even history does not know their names.

i am not afraid of many things. i like to pick up spiders in my bare hands and carry them to safety. heights do not daunt me. i am never more at ease than when performing for a crowd; i will dance or sing at a moment's notice. i like the feeling of their eyes on me, while others cower from it. i didn’t even fear it when last year mother’s belly grew taught and round, a parasite within her, or when the baby came out sickly and squalling, her skin yellow. death does not scare me; what is there to fret in the end of a beating heart? after all, we are all organic matter, designed to be returned to the earth.

i am afraid of something, though --

afraid to be forgotten
afraid to be unremarkable 
afraid to be passed by, a single lifetime in a sea of a billion meaningless lifetimes 
afraid of the dark; to be unseen, unfelt, unknown 

-- to be without a legacy, to not be really something, after all. 

. . . 

i have a recurring dream. in my dream, i stand before a crowd. i am a million miles away from home; they place a crown on my head. they are watching.  they are screaming my name. i have made it. (it is only a dream, after all.)

. . . 

you're the new god we're worshipping
promise to be dazzling 


(i'm not trying to exaggerate, but i think i might die if i made it)

[d1f october rhapsody fray ❁]

o c t o b e r      r h a p s o d y      f r a y

o c t o b e r      r h a p s o d y      f r a y

but i think i might die if it happened
die if it happened to me

. . . 

i always said i'd die for just a chance. i wasn't being dramatic. i meant it. 
i knew they would come for me eventually. i felt it in my gut. 

that's how, when i heard the news, i knew it was all for me. 
a televised event, my face on every screen in the nation. my perfect role. nobody could do it better. i was finally going to be a star. 

i practised my bow, for when they called my name. my wave, my curtsey. i practiced my crocodile tears. it was important to put on a good show, capture the audience. i had never been more ready. 

in the district square, i could sense their fear. some of them shook with it, their stupid little hearts filled with worry. that was only because they didn't know yet that this was my day - their names could not, would not be called, because the title belonged to me.

i kissed my mother goodbye, bid farewell to my father. they told me: "make us proud, baby girl". i promised i would. the baby cried, as she always does. i stood in the crowd for the last time; never again to be anonymous, my last fleeting glimpse of my old life. 

when my turn came, they forgot to call my name. they did not say: october rhapsody fray, as they were supposed to. rather, the name they called was the name of somebody else, somebody who did not deserve it. little bitch, trying to steal what was supposed to be mine. 

"excuse me," i said, stepping forward. "there's been a mistake." 

every head turned to face me. i basked in it, their wide-eyed stare. 

"i'm the one you want. it's supposed to be me." 

the crowd made way for me; i, a doll with the power to part the sea. 

i just know they're going to love me.

. . .

[october rhapsody fray is the first volunteer]

. . . 

take the glory, give everything
promise to be dazzling

[d1f october rhapsody fray ❁]

your future's bright... dazzling 

. . . 

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

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

“please i’m a star!!!!”
accepted x