something like a { s u n s e t } // (zoe)

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

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My toes burrowed into the sand as the thousandth wave crashed against the top of my feet with a gentle embrace that was just soothing enough to keep me waiting for the next one. Deep breaths of the salty air begged me to stay as well. Why was it the waves always made things clearer for me? Even my counselor, the middle aged woman with black curls and sweaters that my father was paying weekly, tried for weeks before she finally got me to open up, but the water, crystal blue and sparkling in the afternoon sun, always seemed to know just what to do in order to make me think.

My eyes were glued on the horizon, fixed specifically on the sun, who was getting closer to kissing the earth and letting her swallow him whole. I guessed I should try and be back before dark, Mom always worried when I wasn't home. It was my fault, really. I hadn't exactly given her a reason not to worry, and the night she found me with an empty pill bottle tipped over on my chest hadn't helped. Breathing in the aroma of the sea one last time, letting it linger a few seconds, I walked over to the place I had taken my clothes off. Slipping my pants on over my shorts, and pulling the light, crimson sweater over drying hair and bare shoulders, I started toward my house. Nobody really ever had parties in the particular spot, one of the reasons I loved it so much, and so it was typically empty. Other than a few lone people like myself, nobody ever bothered walking the long distance to reach the spot, and I called it my own for years.

Today there was only one girl, one that seemed familiar, but I couldn't tell myself why. Her blonde hair danced freely in the wind as she walked along the shore with bare feet. Something about her, the easy, elegant stride, or maybe the feminine feel that made vulnerability swell in my chest, made her- "Beautiful." My voice was barely over a whisper, haunted and cracking under the quiet pressure. She had a silent kind of sadness, one that was much like my own, and just from one look I knew we had a lot in common. Like me, she was all alone. In the group therapy classes I was forced to take, I had noticed every person in the room exhibited the same sadness, the same one she had.

She must have noticed me staring, and I didn't mean to be. My eyes quickly found my feet, still bare and damp with water and thoroughly caked in sand. (Mom always hated when we tracked sand in the house.) Sparing a quick glance her way, I noticed she was still completely aware of me, and I decided talking to her was the better of the two options that made themselves apparent in my mind. I couldn't run anymore, I couldn't. Crossing my arms, and walking over to her, I nodded to the water. "The waves are pretty calm today," I said, and before I could stop myself, "..M-My dad says it means they'll be wild soon." I didn't understand why exactly I had said it, but my father's exact words rang in my head. The calm before the storm, as he called it.

I watched as she listened, pulling a strand of her hair behind her ear, and tried to keep my gaze on the water. I suddenly realized this was the first person I had ever talked to here. I had never brought my family here. I loved them, but I liked for my spot to be private, a place for me and my thoughts to roam and be free. This girl was the first time I had ever spoken to another face at all. A few times I had found myself muttering words to myself when my thoughts became too much to handle as only thoughts, and each time, the waves swallowed the words shortly after they were spoken. One question rang through my head. Why was she so special? Other people had walked beside me before, offering small greetings and smiles, and I never really gave them a reason to stay and talk, offering a small nod or a quiet wave and turning on my heel before they tried to continue the conversation.

This girl was different, or at least she seemed that way. Blue eyes as clear as raindrops seemed brighter in the fading sun's light. She was short, and she was fit enough to be a career. Her hair was thick, falling in wide spirals of a soft shade of gold, and refusing to stay behind her ear no matter how much effort she put into placing it there. All of it was familiar. I couldn't have seen her in school, people like us always ended up at the same table for lunch, but I was sure I had seen her before. I turned back to her, my arms uncrossing and my hands shoving themselves in my pocket. Where had I seen her? The answer finally buries itself in the back of my throat, and my eyes widen a bit.

I wasn't entirely sure, but I recalled seeing her in a group therapy class once, and I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to recall. I hoped she didn't recognize me, I had kept up a fairly good job of hiding how messed up in the head I was from everyone. I think everyone there kept everyone's secret in the hope that they would return the favor, and it was a system that worked. I decided I wasn't going to tell her I remembered her, and hoped she wouldn't say I looked familiar. A slight tug on the ends of my lips turned them up and I offered her a nervous smile as she met my gaze.

"I- I'm.. My name is Kendrick."

these battle scars
don't look like they're fading

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don't look like they'll ever go away
these battle scars
you set me on fire[/center]

credit to zoe for the table/graphic!
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[✨ zozo.]

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People make me nervous.

That's a lie, actually. I think it's the other way around, though my complete lack of unfamiliar human presence recently sways my memory from side to side and makes everything unclear. Maybe I make people nervous, maybe I've been teetering on the edge too long that they can't take it. ("You've gotta get out of your room and out of the house sometime this week or so help me Ripred" Dad had threatened, almost dragging me through the waters in my house and throwing me overboard out into the open air, where the sun screeched into my eyes and threatened to blind me altogether.) Maybe I'm just scared. (Maybe? Probably. Definitely.)

Sometimes I'm glad that he cares enough to force me to get up, get outta bed, go outside for an hour or two. Other times it's just another weight that presses against me, pushing me down when I'm trying my best to get back up again. Back and forth, just like the tide. Stop being so sad, stay in bed if you want. Get up, get back down. You have a right to feel sad, but you don't know what you're sad about. I think I'm getting better and I think things are gonna be ok again but then it pulls me from side to side and everything starts over, just as bad as before.

Breathe, I think. Just breathe. Walking around the beach aimlessly for hours is tiresome, but what really takes my breath away are the thoughts swimming around in head. If I could turn them off and just breathe - not think, not worry, not feel a thing but breathe in and out and carry on with life, that'd be a blessing. Some days I feel everything at once, but some I feel nothing at all. Today I think I'm floating somewhere in-between the two, unsure whether to swim up or down. Then again I'm never sure about anything really, letting the current take me with it or drag me down once more. Keep your chin up, a soft voice whispers that makes me smile. Up, up, up - there we go!

The coast greets my eyes, something I can bare to have stare back at me for more than a second or two. When you're closed off, even the shortest of glances or the lingers of eyes for a second too long feels like assault. I used to like being looked at, revelled in it, threw my head back and soaked it in to fill up something distant and invisible in me. A temporary happiness, something to feed off, to keep on going. Just another step, just another step. My feet find the sand in a rhythmic pace, something so simple yet horrendously difficult. (A trigger in my head sets off and I am back on the cliffside, wondering what it would feel like to live, just for a moment. Just another step, just another step. Then I fall a thousand times in my head and meet the freezing water with a smile, like an old friend swallowing me whole. Yet to my disdain it washed me ashore and I woke up with salt pouring from my lungs and falling down the cheeks of my parents in a foam-white room.)

People asked me why I did it, and I didn't have an answer. I went for a walk and I tripped around the edges and the rocks fell away from my feet before I could get away flew off my tongue. Erosion, you know? Like we learn about in school. It disintegrated under my feet. Good, they said, recalling facts is good. To my distraught parents they smiled and said "You've got a bright girl there." Bright made me laugh, which made me choke, and up came the salt that makes up my watery sanction. (Bright is a positive, a good thing, a happy thing. I don't think I've been happy since I was a little girl.) Nobody thought twice about the possibility of dying on purpose - not even I. Because I didn't want to die. I wanted to live.

Panic rises in me and I look up form the sand again to eyes I felt digging into me. (I haven't seen my reflection in days and I wonder what I look like. Probably like hell.) He approaches me and I want to run back up the beach as fast as possible, back to my cave of bed-sheets and bury myself inside them, but the water calls and screams to hide in it's depths. Before I can make up my mind he's standing near me and talking - talking, shit. Listen, the comforting voice calls. Listen, keep your head up, and don't forget to breathe.

"The waves are pretty calm today," he comments, transfixing my eyes to the shore so he doesn't see the pulses of my heartbeat rippling across my pupils at a thousand beats a minute. Breathe, don't forget to breathe.

(Inhale.)

"..M-My dad says it means they'll be wild soon."

I smile. "The calm before the storm" falls out of my mouth in a murmur as my fingers find my hair. "How excellent." They are odd, incoherent thoughts, turned into phrases, turned into quiet, spoken words.

I can't help but look and see him smile. "I- I'm.. My name is Kendrick."

"Pleasure to meet you" I reply, turning back to spy the sunset saying goodbye over the ocean. (Names are for friends, family, people you can trust. There's only one person in the world I can trust and he's the one who threw me overboard, so for now I'll keep my secrets hidden and my identity safer.)

"I'm Q."

(Exhale.)

this is not new to me
as i sit in this boat
but i'm so cold
my bones will
f r e e z e

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[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

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My eyes widened with shock as the words fell from her lips in soft harmony, using the very same ones my father used when he old me. I guessed it was a common saying, and I had definitely heard others use it before, but something about the way she said it, the way they swayed like the waves felt different. Like they held a different meaning to her than to everyone else. The calm before the storm. They were words used to describe my behavior before the accident, quiet, reserved, tame, a shadow. I was trying to disappear and when it hadn't worked I resorted to other measures. Ones that made my father look at me differently. It was like a sadness, or a shame that lurked in his stares. One that made me feel guilty, as I should have felt. I did try to take my own life. I guessed I was never afraid of death, and I just accepted it as a part of life.

Q. That was all she offered me. Perhaps it was a nickname, one her family and friends used. I wondered what it was short for. Queen, maybe? Quinn? Neither of them seemed to fit her, honestly. I turned my head sideways to keep my hair out of my eyes. (It was time for a trim.) "Interesting name," I said with a small nod and a smile. She bit her lip and squinted at the horizon, such a peaceful place I wished I could be a bigger part of. It was like chasing rainbows, though, it was always out of reach, no matter how hard you tried to catch it.

"So, do you live around here?" I asked, honestly curious. People never bothered traveling this far out, unless they really wanted some alone time. So, either she lived farther away from the square as most, or she was a loner like myself. I didn't know why, but I wanted her to be like me. I needed a friend, one that actually understood, and one that wouldn't stab me in the back. I wasn't assuming we were gonna become close, but I certainly had my hopes so far. For all I knew she could have been the friend that kept me from something like that night. My hands tucked themselves into my pockets, gathering the remaining fabric and letting go, gathering the remaining fabric and letting go, several times before I spoke again. "I kind of like it here, it's quiet, you know?" I liked any place quiet, a school library, my room when I laid down to sleep, and this place all were some of my favorites.

My toes played in the sand, a feeling I actually hated after I was out of the beach and on solid ground, where the stuff gritted against my skin and was caked just thick enough to make me stop and wipe it off. Still, I could feel my pulse rising, and there was no logical explanation as to why. Maybe it was her, me being in the presence of someone new always made me nervous, or maybe it was that the sun would be setting soon, and I needed to be home not too long after dark, I wasn't sure. I looked over at the girl as she spoke, her tone was like sugar and gave me the chills. It was high pitched, and yet smooth, and I guessed she had a very pretty singing voice. It would have made sense. Pretty girls like her were always talented, but they never seemed to realize it. I decided I was going to make sure she knew. She deserved to know.

"You wanna walk?"

I asked, pulling a hand from my pocket and swaying it in front of me playfully. As we walked, our pace slow and unsteady since we both kept getting mesmerized by the natural beauty around me, and for me, Q's beauty as well. She really was something incredible. I couldn't even put my finger on what, exactly, so I decided it was everything about her. I also decided that I was probably going to like her. Good. Great. I could've really used a friend right now.

these battle scars
don't look like they're fading

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don't look like they'll ever go away
these battle scars
you set me on fire[/center][/size][/justify][/blockquote]
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[✨ zozo.]

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 000000; border: 000000 solid 0px; width: 350px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;] Small talk is both painstakingly difficult and incredibly easy. The easy part is the short answers, blurting out the definite answers hammered into your head through routine conversations with strangers like a robot. The difficult part comes in the awkward pauses when words run short, when questions are answered a little too quickly or our responses dwindle away into nothing and are carried away by the wind. I want so desperately to grab them in those situations, plucking them from the sky before they're out of reach and forcing them back into my mouth, choking under their pressure - but instead I just say nothing and watch the conversation tumble along with time instead. Small talk about the ocean was like talking about the weather any place else, for what else was there to discuss in District Four than the sea itself? It's cliché, but so am I, so I make like the ocean and drift away. Sometimes I float along the currents like a piece of driftwood, letting a force greater than me steer me along its path. But sometimes I'm a bird in the sky, floating amongst the clouds into the sunset, guiding myself on my own destination. Then people pick me out of the water or pull me down into the ground and I'm forced to realise I'm neither a piece of wood or a bird of prey but human and nothing else. Blood flows through my veins, not the ocean. I breathe in air, not light. My home is a small house on a hill near a riverbank with a boat named after me and a tire swing long forgotten, not down below where sea-creatures play and the beds are made of sand yet nobody ever sleeps. Somebody's pulling me back, again. I blink to find the sunset upon me once more, warming my body, thankful there's no wind. What had I just said it was? The calm before the storm. By tomorrow - if I make it, for who knows what ugly, invisible predators lurk underneath the ocean - the glassy surfaces will be shaken and stirred, howling for days when things were peaceful and no waves had to crash into each-other over and over again. (I know more than anybody what that feels like, rolling into your own chaos for days and days at a time and feeling as if you'll never see sunlight again.) But today it is sunny, today it is calm, so I'll count my blessing and dive in the deep end of conversations with strangers and see if I'll break the surface again. "Interesting name," the anchor remarks. I say nothing and smile - it's not a lie, per say, because it's been my nickname for longer than I can remember, but I'm still wary around him. Anchors are supposed to be a symbol of hope, but I've always thought that was a silly thought because the one job an anchor has is to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps I am the anchor, being pulled up and down and up and down just so other people can feel at ease and not float away. Everybody else is minding their own business in their own little boats, and out of everyone I'm the one who has to sink. Lately that's been ok, because days go by where I'm not always stuck at the bottom, and if I am it's only for a little while. Somebody promises to haul me back onto deck, never letting go. Maybe this kid will keep me on board, or maybe he'll row out into the middle of the night and throw me away, rope and all, when nobody else can save me. But I'm already in the deep end anyway, so I might as well try to tread water whilst I'm here. "So, do you live around here?" Warning alarms begin to ring in my head - those were my secrets, my identity, not ready to be exploited and drawn in the sand for everyone to see. Toes curl against the gritty ground underneath my soles, wishing it could swallow me up. "I kind of like it here, it's quiet, you know?" The bells laugh - quiet, yes, if you can't hear the catastrophe in my head or the seagulls screech in the early morning or thunder crack against the horizon when the storm has finally arrived. Endless amounts of words and sentences and opinions that I used to be so good at sharing catch between my teeth, a prison in my own mouth. And then it's oxygen that won't leave, caught by my lips as I clamp them shut, refusing to let anything leave my body. Come on now, the kind voice says, you can do it. Just breathe, that's all. "You wanna walk?" (Inhale.) I follow close beside him - not too close, of course, cautionary intentions leading the way in which my feet find the sand. It's quiet, too quiet for my tastes. The sun is starting to fall asleep and the sky is painted gold and purple and the quiet little voice in the back of my head tells me to let go, just for a moment. Just be yourself. (But who is that exactly?) I think you already know. "Walking's kinda boring" I state, a grin tugging at the corners of my mouth. to release my hidden words. They taste blunt, but that's ok, because the delighted ones are soon to follow. "You know what's fun, though? Watch this." And I'm racing forwards, half-skipping across the sand with quick little steps, laughing as my hands stretch out in the sky for a moment before launching myself sideways, springing into a cartwheel against the sunset. I'm living: I'm alive and I'm living and I'm actually enjoying myself, breathless when I stop after a twirl or two later. "See? It's fun!" My hand stretches out for him to join me, and part of me begs for him to take it. "Come on. I'll teach you, if you want." (Exhale.)

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quar·tz
(noun) /kwarts/
1. female, eighteen, district 4
2. sarcastic, fragile, empty, anchor
3. struggling to breathe

“You’ll meet her, she’s very pretty, even though sometimes she’s sad for many days at a time. You’ll see, when she smiles, you’ll love her.”

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listen.


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