birdie hope / d8 / fin
Aug 14, 2019 15:35:01 GMT -5
Post by goat on Aug 14, 2019 15:35:01 GMT -5
beatrice “birdie” hope
36
she/her
district 8
36
she/her
district 8
What a broken thing you have become.
The person you were when you were younger feels so far away now. People used to say you lit up every room you entered. There was always a smile on your face and a new joke on the tip of your tongue. As the bright, funny girl of the Hope family, people were falling over themselves trying to befriend you, and you welcomed that. You loved talking with every person you met, kindness coming as natural to you as breathing.
Now, you stare at yourself in the remains of a shattered mirror and try not to think about how you broke it. It felt like such a childish thing to do after, as you were pulling glass from your bloody knuckles, but in the moment, you couldn’t stop yourself. It was a new feeling for you. You have been many things in life, but angry never used to be one of them. You were tough, sure, but you hadn’t been burned by the world yet. Even when things got bad, you refused to let it show. People tend to be easily fooled by outward appearances, never caring enough to peel back the surface and see what really lies beneath.
You wear your sadness heavy underneath your skin, the feeling poisoning you for well over a year. You remember the catalyst so clearly. It’s like the memory has been seared onto the insides of your eyelids, replaying in vivid color every time you close them. There’s your daughter on screen— your beautiful, sad daughter, her hair matted and her hands crusted with blood. One moment, she’s on her feet, and the next, she’s crumpled on the ground, a gaping hole on the right side of her face.
You remember the way you froze, mouth half-open, waiting for her to shake it off and get up like she always did, but she didn’t, she didn’t get up, and then you were rocking on the floor, screaming, wailing, begging for death to take you too.
The days after that blur together in a sick, sad mess. You tried to stay strong for your family, the family that had already suffered so much, but when you were alone, all you could do was lie in bed and weep. You could barely take care of yourself. It’s better now, just a bit. You’re still good at hiding it. You understand how Damaris felt now, how she could feel so empty and hopeless, how she could want everything to end.
Leland came by a week after she died. Maybe it was two, you don’t remember. You didn’t let him in. How fucking cruel of him, to wait so long to come see you. It didn’t matter if he was grieving. You were grieving too.
You two had fallen in love young and completely foolishly, as much as you denied it at the time. You were such a wild thing back then, with your long shawls and bare feet, floating from room to room as if you were dancing to silent music. Damaris had been a surprise, a sudden interruption in your breezy life, but you reasoned that you were just going to have to be the best mom you could be. You took it in stride, like you took everything else. There was no way you could have known how hard it was going to become, and how the seventeen years you spent with her would feel so short once her name was plucked from the reaping bowl. You wonder how you would have done things differently if you had known. You wonder if it would even matter.
It seems as if Leland doesn’t want to deal with it. Typical. You grew up over the years and he didn’t. You hate yourself for still wanting to be with him. You know you deserve better, and should want better, but you don’t, and you don’t know how to make yourself stop wanting him to come back. You always let him back in, even if it takes you a while, but he makes you so angry sometimes, sometimes you just want to shove him to the ground and scream—
Aren’t you happy? Isn’t this what you wanted? You didn’t want to be a father and now you aren’t anymore. You can have your life back! Good for you! You can fuck off with your boys and I’ll be here, like I always have been, because you always got to leave and I had to stay behind and pick up the pieces. I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re fucking happy.
Fathers get to stop being fathers if they want to. Mothers always have to be mothers. At what point, after your child dies, do you stop being a mother? Is it the immediate moment of their death? The moment they stop breathing after being dragged away from the fight? Is it the moment they come home, pale and broken body stuffed inside a cheap casket? Is it the moment you put them into the ground and watch the dirt as it’s shoveled over? Is it a month after that? A year?
There is no easy conclusion you can come to. Perhaps you are forever destined to be mother to a ghost.
The person you were when you were younger feels so far away now. People used to say you lit up every room you entered. There was always a smile on your face and a new joke on the tip of your tongue. As the bright, funny girl of the Hope family, people were falling over themselves trying to befriend you, and you welcomed that. You loved talking with every person you met, kindness coming as natural to you as breathing.
Now, you stare at yourself in the remains of a shattered mirror and try not to think about how you broke it. It felt like such a childish thing to do after, as you were pulling glass from your bloody knuckles, but in the moment, you couldn’t stop yourself. It was a new feeling for you. You have been many things in life, but angry never used to be one of them. You were tough, sure, but you hadn’t been burned by the world yet. Even when things got bad, you refused to let it show. People tend to be easily fooled by outward appearances, never caring enough to peel back the surface and see what really lies beneath.
You wear your sadness heavy underneath your skin, the feeling poisoning you for well over a year. You remember the catalyst so clearly. It’s like the memory has been seared onto the insides of your eyelids, replaying in vivid color every time you close them. There’s your daughter on screen— your beautiful, sad daughter, her hair matted and her hands crusted with blood. One moment, she’s on her feet, and the next, she’s crumpled on the ground, a gaping hole on the right side of her face.
You remember the way you froze, mouth half-open, waiting for her to shake it off and get up like she always did, but she didn’t, she didn’t get up, and then you were rocking on the floor, screaming, wailing, begging for death to take you too.
The days after that blur together in a sick, sad mess. You tried to stay strong for your family, the family that had already suffered so much, but when you were alone, all you could do was lie in bed and weep. You could barely take care of yourself. It’s better now, just a bit. You’re still good at hiding it. You understand how Damaris felt now, how she could feel so empty and hopeless, how she could want everything to end.
Leland came by a week after she died. Maybe it was two, you don’t remember. You didn’t let him in. How fucking cruel of him, to wait so long to come see you. It didn’t matter if he was grieving. You were grieving too.
You two had fallen in love young and completely foolishly, as much as you denied it at the time. You were such a wild thing back then, with your long shawls and bare feet, floating from room to room as if you were dancing to silent music. Damaris had been a surprise, a sudden interruption in your breezy life, but you reasoned that you were just going to have to be the best mom you could be. You took it in stride, like you took everything else. There was no way you could have known how hard it was going to become, and how the seventeen years you spent with her would feel so short once her name was plucked from the reaping bowl. You wonder how you would have done things differently if you had known. You wonder if it would even matter.
It seems as if Leland doesn’t want to deal with it. Typical. You grew up over the years and he didn’t. You hate yourself for still wanting to be with him. You know you deserve better, and should want better, but you don’t, and you don’t know how to make yourself stop wanting him to come back. You always let him back in, even if it takes you a while, but he makes you so angry sometimes, sometimes you just want to shove him to the ground and scream—
Aren’t you happy? Isn’t this what you wanted? You didn’t want to be a father and now you aren’t anymore. You can have your life back! Good for you! You can fuck off with your boys and I’ll be here, like I always have been, because you always got to leave and I had to stay behind and pick up the pieces. I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re fucking happy.
Fathers get to stop being fathers if they want to. Mothers always have to be mothers. At what point, after your child dies, do you stop being a mother? Is it the immediate moment of their death? The moment they stop breathing after being dragged away from the fight? Is it the moment they come home, pale and broken body stuffed inside a cheap casket? Is it the moment you put them into the ground and watch the dirt as it’s shoveled over? Is it a month after that? A year?
There is no easy conclusion you can come to. Perhaps you are forever destined to be mother to a ghost.
![pearl mcclain d4 [ryan] Avatar](https://imgur.com/kyqh2Lp.gif)
