#thunder talks

IM FUCKING SCREAMING AHHFHDHFHFJFJ THIS IS WHY I CANT PLAY JACKBOX WITH PEOPLE WHO KNOW MY FANDOMS

okay okay. let me set the scene. we’re playing champed up. my prompt is “the champion of glamour.” so naturally, my champion is ranboolive.

i hit submit. the challenger scene comes up. my friend, sitting opposite me on the couch, looks up and narrows her eyes. i know that she has mine, and i know that she knows it’s mine.

she says to me, with the most smug look on her face, “what’s that thing in genloss episode three called?”

HER CHALLENGER WAS LITERALLY “RANBOO GETTING CRUCIFIED ON AN IRON MAIDEN.”

AND HERS FUCKING WON.

Beneath a blanket of laurel and viridian she lies, Tucked among the roots and ivy. The forest holds her in an embrace of thistles and thorns, Bones of ossified birch, knees sunk into dirt.

Her ghost likes to follow me around, A youthful skip in her gait. She is much more vibrant than I, Eyes azure and gleaming As she darts through the tree line and gleefully squeals "Last one there is a rotten egg."

It's not uncommon for people to see her in me, Or rather, her instead of me. Grown-ups often chuckle and sigh, sugar sweet smiles on their lips, And chitter amongst themselves about how oh-so precocious she is.

Will they ever see me?

She and I are one in the same, people tell me. We have the same smile, same hair, same face. She is all I have ever been and all I ever will be. Anything I think or say or do, no matter how original, She has done it first.

Her name is what people know me by.  It sticks to my skin like maple sap, Burrows itself deeper like a malignant little tick. While it once tasted like wildflowers and pine needles, Now, it is no more than a withered husk That tastes of ash on my tongue.

I do not hate her.

How can I?

She is pure and free and bright, A beam of sunlight born in the burning summer sky. My history is hers, and hers is mine, Identical spirals of cambium etched into the flesh of our arms. When I look into weathered polaroid photographs, Streaked yellow and pink from bygone years, I see her round, youthful face, Lips quirked upward and beaming at the camera.

Her smile is beautiful.

I hold her closely, I carry her on my back. Her arms are looped around my shoulders And her messy caramel curls fall over mine. She clings to me like a moth to a lamp, Sinks her ivory birch roots into my bones, Entwines herself with me. She is a part of me.

But I am not her.

I am alive and she is no more than a memory. Yet when the world speaks to me they call upon her name. When I do not answer, they do not understand why. When I drag them after me, through the woods and to her grave, And show them the brambles growing in her lungs And the sunflowers blooming in her throat, They tell me that she is merely sleeping. For how could a dead thing Bloom so bright?

So I hack off those beloved curls under the cover of the night And stain them the same color as the dawn. If I am ever to become more than the person who wears her face, I must bloom brighter than her corpse. If not an act of rebellion, then call it a desperate plea For someone to softly cup my cheek and, for once, see me.

I am not the little girl with the sunlit smile, But I once was, years ago. It is a fact that is as immutable as death, A law as eternal as life. And though I still carry her in my arms, I am older and wiser now And she will remain forever a child.

We are not the same person. Not anymore. And someday, I hope, the world will look upon us, See our fingers entwined like morning glory vines, And call upon not her,