Post by eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris on Aug 30, 2014 18:47:12 GMT -5
I have been drowning.
With memories from a time long before and liquid starlight lodged within my throat, I've been drowning. I can hardly remember the feeling - warm, like how my knee felt the first time I fell down and bled after scraping it - of my mother's fingertips upon my cheek, or the sound - pure, like my father always said I was - of my twin brother's laughter, or even the taste - real, like nothing I've ever known - of our favorite candy. Still, I can -
smell,
see,
taste,
hear,
- feel it all in the abysmal reaches of my very being. Like touching velveteen roses and then pricking a finger on a thorn, I can never forget the ecstasy of it --
nor can I forget the pain.
I see it every night. The cracking earth and the shattered walls. I can hear the cries of strangers, of my mother and father screaming at my siblings and I to "Run!" I see it. I see the tears, and I see the carnage. I feel my brother's fingertips slipping away from my own as the earth between us parts, and I feel the sturdy structure that comes tumbling down onto my form, sending me into an eternal slumber that's--
That's always where I wake up, cheeks as red as the dress my mother met my father in - the dress she swore she'd let me wear someday - bringing life to my gaunt face. But the dress is in tattered shreds now; it's in ruins like the family I'm so certain that I've lost -- nothing but a ripped fabrication of something that could of have been.
And I know they're gone.
("If we ever get separated, what should we do?" I ask.
"Follow the stars," my brother assures.)
Why would I be haunted with images of my broken family upon closing my eyes if any of them still had air within their lungs? My brother and I had sworn as children to never part, and I can't even bring myself to believe that his heartbeat still resonates within his chest, that thoughts still bounce off the marrow of his skull.
But I dream it.
With hollow eyes that my father once called pure, I let myself believe that there is somewhere - somewhere close, or somewhere far - my brother still walks; there is somewhere my brother still loves me, still searches for me.
As strong as I pretend to be, I'm just a coward. A damsel dressing up as a dragon for fun, yet praying for a knight to set her free, though his sword is aimed at her throat.
Ms. Gray lets me know how fragile I am daily.
("If I hadn't saved you from that wreckage, you'd be dead," she states, slender fingers combing through my hair.
"I know.")
Ms. Gray had been the one who had found me - "rescued" me - after the earthquake of One. She nursed me back to health, stitching up my cuts and sewing my lips shut whenever I called out for my family.
Because they were dead, yeah?
("They're probably six feet under by now, child.")
Right?
I was caged.
Caged away, more or less lost within myself, Ms. Gray sheltered me from the world. An occasional, "To the town square with you, but make haste! Speak to no one, nary a soul. Fear not the reaping, child. Who wouldn't volunteer for a child as weak as you?" setting me free, but my soul too uncertain to fly far enough away to escape her clutches.
I grew up bitter and I grew up self-doubting. Each night I'd train my body within the locked confinements of my room, and each night I'd place vinegar upon my tongue and make my words all the more detached and barren.
("Act as big and bad as you want, Estie. You're still just my little helpless girl.")
And I was, wasn't I?
Ms. Gray was my saviour, my knight, and though I'm grateful -- fuck, why do I still feel like I'm in such danger?
I like to believe that there's more to me than the fact that I've never been able to save myself, more than my elfin ears or my pallid flesh; more than my lazed eyes that never spread wide anymore.
But what else is there?
I'm just the hollow girl stuck in the dark, the maidenunfair trying to drag around a sword far too heavy for her feeble hands to heft.
I am not the smartest girl, but I learned from the books Ms. Gray had provided me.
I am not the prettiest girl; with lips far too small to contain my teeth, and hair like a snowy storm. Ms. Gray always assures that, had I been born into a more prestigious family, I would have found a lover - Ripred, wouldn't he have been so damn lucky?
I am not the bravest girl, nor am I the most innocent. But through all the bad, I learned to look for the good.
I'm a hollow girl who's fallen apart, held together by the toxic glue of her sins. I know that I should be grateful, that I should be happy about my life -- I know that I should just give in to the coward that I am and realize that I'm all alone in this world and that I'm nothing.
But when I see the stars outside of the little window above my bed each night before I close my eyes, I swear I feel something.
'Cause I may just be a girl with nothing, a girl wearing a helmet far too large and a suit of armor far too loose --
but at least I have the courage to fight for a damn something.
oDair
