01   }   track one
gone girl

In the dead of winter, she forgets her name.

(Oh, was it Rose, was it Diana, was it Sophie, was it Claire?)

Her fingers cool straight down to the bone and the length of her back shivers with nervous anticipation. Her hair lays lightly on her shoulders without a single strand out of place and the tips of her fingers itch with a sudden urge to move but she waits. She waits until the sun crawls its way back into the way it was before—the days when the coldness of winter didn't take the world into its small, petite hands and place it lightly onto December's tongue to swallow it whole. She waits until the bone-chilling ache of snow doesn't pool around her ankles and shoulder her unwilling weight there; until the day it doesn't pain her to walk streets without having the trouble of breathing, shuddering breaths cutting off in her chest. She waits until she no longer feels eaten alive by the hum of Winter's chill, there is no more white on the sidewalks of her home and the liquid of its used-to-be softness seeps back into the Earth where it belongs. Because Winter is a monster, and she decides, quite impossibly: that it couldn't possibly be her name. Afterwards, she sleeps.

In the waking hours of May she sees the blooming buds of the flowers cultivated in the home next door. They are colorful and rosy, healthy reds and pinks on their soft, silky cheeks. The roses wink at her from all sides: their thorny stems laughing at her mockingly until she cannot help but pick one up—but her skin peels back from where they are supposed to stay and the red-hot sight of her blood spill over in an almost-race to escape her fingers. She feels the pain but it is beautiful and she makes her conclusion absentmindedly; (it is only to look, not to touch—) then she waits. She waits until the light breeze that used to push her bangs out of her face burns the skin of her cheeks and reddens the coverings of her thighs. She waits until the rays of the sun start to hollow out the husk of her hips and now, merely tank tops ride the tops of her bosom—nearing the end of July, she decides Spring can't be her name. It is much too light for her tastes; (but at the same time it hides beneath the beauty of its name—it is a venomous snake slithering underneath the covering of sheep's wool and she doesn't seem to be that, either.)

August hits her like a baseball bat to the face. Suddenly it is much too hot to wear sweaters and jeans and shoes—instead slippers don her feet and her shoulders are bare and she has to wear shorts. Her hair is tied up into a ponytail but stray strands of her locks frame her face in silent rebellion. Her forehead shines with the residue of sweat and her body is stiff and uncomfortable and most of all: hot. Her tongue sticks to the back of her throat and it is as dry as Earth without water—but even liquid cannot soothe the thrumming in her veins; she can feel her heart shriek in her left breast and she doesn't like the feeling of August's burn. It is too aggressive—too stubborn—So no, she breathes out: Summer is not her name and will never be. She waits until the pain of her reddened exterior slows down to a boiling simmer and the leaves of the palm trees that always stood tall start to droop down into red-orange flakes and plants die only for the sake of dying—

Autumn comes. Autumn comes, and a lot of death comes with it. The used-to-be flowers fall from their spots on treetops in an almost-second, fast as the loss of breath; the green that once speckled the ground and the view of the sky disintegrates into the dark of brown, and it almost seems like all the plants within a fifty mile radius from her has died overnight. October feels like the grim reaper: suddenly the resplendent hues of summer has burned out and everything acts like their souls have been sucked out of their body. There is a soft chill in the air that reminds her of Winter. (She wonders idly: are they sisters?) And there is beauty to it too—she can occasionally see people admiring the weeping corpses of millions of green. How morbid. She is a being of death. She feels less than most. Autumn is indifferent. So maybe, just maybe she is an Autumn. But no—

In the dead of winter, she forgets her name. Mid-autumn she deigns herself nameless—and as nameless as the broken wisps of fresh air the land of her ancestors blows into her face, reminders to seek her identity, she hisses back: she does not wish to be boxed into a bird's cage with no key. She is a spirit floating in the realm of the living and she has no reason to be there nor to be categorized as one, an outsider whose skin shines pale and veiny and whose eyes are dulled and seem to have seen too much of the darkness of the world.

She is a nameless girl in a world ruled by names. But really, that's all it really is.

a   }    notes

this was something i wrote around a year ago (?) and while usually i'm not all that proud of past works, i'm still actually p proud of this one! this was based off of the abstract idea of identity—and yes, clearly, i write about identity a lot. it's something that's always with me, so yes imagine a lot more identity-inspired pieces lmao. also, i included a ton of season references (because while in the country i live it's usually summer summer summer all year long, i'm absolutely in love with seasons and just... had to lol)

also, this was labeled as a misc/personal book in the beginning, but i might make this my writing dump/folio! expect a lot more writing in the days to come <3