SWAN UPON LEDA; hunger games

swan upon leda

"the gateway to the world

the gun in a trembling hand

where nature unmakes the boundary 

the pillar of myth still stands

the swan upon leda

occupier upon ancient land"

LEDA BYRNE

    remembers. She remembers the days in the water, she days where she had no other worries besides living and breathing. The days where she played with her brother and existed with her mother and father. She remembers the days when she had control of her life; when she could decide who her friends were and if she felt up to going to school. She remembers the day when Finnick Odiar's name was called for all of them to hear, the way that she had held back her tears as fear creeped all along her body, invading every ounce of her heart, mind, body, and soul. 

     She remembers the day that he had returned home to District 4. The day where he had come home, looking more dead than alive. Like a breathing, walking ghost. His eyes had been dull, numbed to the world, and he flinched when someone grew just a little too close. Winced whenever someone's voice grew too loud. Cried in the dead of night, cradled by the waves in which they had all been born. His hands were drenched in blood, a ledger suffocated by crimson. Leda hadn't expected to become like him. To see death in the same way that he did, or experience its hands wrapping around her as they had done to him. He had only been fourteen then, and a year later, she had only been fifteen.

     She remembers that day. The day that her name had been called. The day that it had rung all around her. She remembers her mother's cries and her father's shouts of fury; her brother's scared voice asking questions that no one had an answer to. She remembers the shaking of her hands and the flood in her veins. She had never felt so afraid, never so frozen in place. A marble statue, is what she remaindered herself of.