billy yates | district nine | fin

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

billy yates
sixteen | district nine | male
let tragedy strike its fate...

They say we should shelter from the storm, but I am so ready to sit in the eye of it. I am surrounded by a restless world, but the chaos is shadowed from my reach. All these exciting opportunities wandering past my reach and all I can do is fall back into this repeated dull life. There is a bungee line strapped to my back, on so many occasions I have experienced the madness, but I am always so quickly pulled back before I can completely indulge in it.

I am a seeker of excitement, but my magnifying glass just isn’t big enough to find it.

I look like my brother or does he look like me? I am two years ahead of him but there has always been the comparisons between us since he was pulled into my life. My blue eyes reflect his, in two years he will be the same height as me, the same ingredients were mixed together to brew us, fortunately we do not share the same brain. I fight on to step out into the world but the bungee cord pulls me back because my brother is taking the same trail. I have had a two-year head start and still he is closer to it than me.

My looks are probably below average, there is no attraction to those who I seek. All the stall men in the market that I work look beyond me. So many mountains surrounding this small ant and my brother is the biggest one. The mountain with the boot ready to pounce on top of me. Even the scars that I have decorated on myself are nothing more but bland. The bulb in this spotlight of mine will never be changed, it is completely dead and without even a flicker of light.

It is no wonder my pillows are soaked with the streams from my eyes. An escape from the fight, I don’t know where to go when I don’t get my own way. Tensions span to my parents during our debates, ”Stop with these tantrums Billy!” They are far from tantrums, just displays of the emotions within me. It is no good just containing it all, it really is my only opportunity to draw their attention away from my brother. A broken plate, a flipped table, all this mess just so I can feel something from them. It is has been so long since I have even had a hug.

My only chance of securing friends is stirring the pot of bullshit. A twist of truths and blatant lies, if they knew the true tale of my life, they would not even bother reading the blurb. Small fantasies to live by, I can easily string a false life to entice another. It is just too bad that these friendships barely last a month. Word must have gotten out of my antics, for so many strangers stray away before I can even shake their hand. All I do now is beg for anyone, there is really no secured person out there to catch these emotions that are so desperate to be tamed. Someone that will take time to turn their attention to me rather than turn away. This bungee cord  of life likes to pull me away from them.

All these emotions and there is only one way to let them play. I paint the world with them, on the scrapped paper and sometimes the brush veers off onto my skin. So many colourful chemicals to collect, even the fruits on the brushes mix together a fine pigment. Some stain for an eternity and others wash away so swiftly, even before I let the masterpiece dry it begins to drip onto my floor. Everything in this world is out to fight me and really, I have the courage to put up my fists but my will stands in the shadows, ready on that bungee cord to pull back.

If only there were more than two years between us, I would have had the time to live a real life. If only my brother didn’t even enter this world to begin with. Even with his sickness, I am skinnier than him. Mother fills his plate with the rations, begging the nutrients to cure him. He even has the comfiest bed in the house, while I am left with the straw pillows and rickety bed frame. It is all so clearly reflected on my eyes, darkened beyond my years, if anyone looked into my soul they would see an elderly man. Even the weekly baths are designated to him, barely a puddle of water left for me as everyone has had their turn, the aroma that follows me is another thing that I wish to fight away.

Four years ago, my brother decided to be fall ill. I caught him falling once, I should have really let him go, a bang to his head would have put all our misery to rest. Mother left her market stall empty and father cut his hours at the factory. Less and less money coming into the house, just because my little brother decided to become bed ridden. During the first winter, it nearly ended but spring revived him. Such teases in his conditions, he walks now but barely keeps the food down in his stomach. There is no cure for his agony but a bullet to his head. Any dog would have been put down by down.

Now I am tossed to one side, to my parents, they only have one son and that’s the one whose clock is ready to strike its last hour. So, when it is all over for him, will they apologise for the years of forgetting me? Two birthdays have swung by and it has been a week after for them to even realise. I don’t beg for presents or treasures, just an acknowledgement of my existence.

All these tears must be visible to them. For the physical pain that my brother endures must be far more of a priority to the mental pain that is knocking me down just as hard. There no medicines to sooth my symptoms, no doctors to give me a diagnosis. I am just here alone and lost, with no sight on where I am to go.

I just want a tragedy to strike its fate on this family and finally end the suffering.

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

Hopefully he is done

[esther kim d3 {lance}]

accept