{Boom, Said Thunder} ii. [PK/Rebel]

[Deleted]

We didn’t see the world
Eye to eye.
His voice carried longer,
He loomed like a sunflower
Craned upward to the sky.

I preferred the quiet
Shadows of dusk and dark
And kept to the forest floor.
There is nothing special about me
that would warrant a second look.

I think it was because of Salome
My heart beat different
And my head hurt.
I didn’t cry because
There was no use spreading tears
For a soul that would ascend.

She deserved to leave us behind.

But Sampson wanted the world
To see that he could change—
He would make them see
Words and speeches
Won’t dry eyes or mend hearts.

No one sees me
In the dark of night.
He knows I could do it
They will come for me and
I’ll slither away to shadow
My second skin.

That is why in the cool of the morning,
When dawn has not yet broken
And the birds are not fluttering
I set out down the road and go about
Making the change we need for him.

They have already been at work for hours
Stacking tins of fertilizer pellets and salt peter
Dreams and dangers crammed together
Their hands odorous with rebellion.

I am not softer on her because of what she may be:
A mother, a friend, a lover.
Salome never had a chance to be any of those things.
She would have tamed the sun and organized the stars
If her hands had the chance.
But now we’re left with sorrow, pallid in our grief.
If anger was a vice then I breathe it in to help me
I wrap my hands around a can with a kerchief dangling,
And use my lighter to set it ablaze.

There are times when your soul is
And isn’t yours
Traded
For that moment when
You can see your life veer left, or right.
You are this one action,
Defined by what may come.

The can spirals and sails,
Shattering into a blast of light and smoke
Above our heads.
Funny,
How fire can make us all still.

I don’t wait to see her face,
Or to hear them charge.
Instead my feet take me to where
I’m supposed to go,
Waiting until she
Like a shooting star
Sails too close.

[Lyn𝛿is]

[googlefont="Patrick Hand SC:400"]

Cara Eveline Maslow

You're not particularly surprised to be redistricted to District Eleven.

They have always been the most rebellious. Not even the harsh work culture and frequent executions can tame those savages, and so the only recourse is numbers - more Peacekeepers, so that the seeds of rebellion can be squashed before they tear down the district.

And truth be told, working in District Two was getting rather boring. The most you've had to deal with in the past year were drunken Career bar fights after particularly exciting parts of the Quarter Quell.

You privately think that yes, Two did deserve to win. Not that you care about whether Cricket actually rigged the Games or not; sometimes it seems to you that testosterone-fueled Career boys just want an excuse to smash each other across the face with beer bottles.

But boys will be boys, and such antics are never punished too heavily in Two. They will grow up, and who are you to ruin a potential Peacekeeper's life for merely a moment of drunken impulsivity? The scar across their stinging cheek is plenty for them.

You're not a monster. You only discipline as harshly as the offender deserves or needs it. Yet you still desire - no, hunger - for miscreants that you can dole out more interesting consequences to. The thugs in Eleven will provide you with that. They are not committing childish indiscretions - they are committing treason. And treason must be snuffed out with swift blows of justice.

Your ears prick up in suspicion as you approach the alleyway; it is far too much noise for this time of day. They warned you when you left that Eleven is full of criminals just waiting for a chance to get up to no good. You will not give them that opportunity.

Something flickers. A flashy but ineffectual blast of light and smoke, a pale imitation of the petrol bombs you have seen tributes make during the Games. You thank your predecessors for the series of regulations restricting citizens from obtaining potentially explosive chemicals. You will have a word later with that colleague who complained they were unnecessary and only made for extra work.

But first and most importantly, arresting and punishing whoever threw that bomb. Perhaps you will burn their tongue out instead of cutting it, to make it particularly painful and particularly fitting for them.

The sparks of the explosion fizzle out on the street and you smile - for that is all their 'rebellion' will ever amount to. Children who act like they know better, who think their treason will spread like wildfire, when their reality is makeshift fireworks and sad little sparks.

Unfortunately for you, it only takes a spark for a grain silo to explode.