I don't own the Hunger Games.
Sometimes you think you've lost your mind.
Maybe it was the Games, but you think it was the explosion. The blinding light -that one star- it's all so clear, even now, with the tubes in your arms and words in your head. They echo hauntingly through your thoughts, mocking you. They say the things you've heard that you never wanted to hear.
Sometimes you have nightmares about flames, and screams bound around your head long after waking. It's always the same place burning, and the faces attached to the screams are too familiar for you to bear.
Sometimes you ask yourself questions: Why are you still alive? Why are you the Mockingjay? Why are you the Revolution?
Sometimes it doesn't seem fair -but when has it ever?
Reentering the Games, Haymitch's deception, Peeta's kidnapping. The indignation burns your insides at the injustice and leaves a metallic taste in your mouth that reminds you of blood. The anger tires you, as does remembering. You don't want to remember anymore.
Sometimes the drugs help, but nothing makes it all go away. Only death will, you know that, but they won't let you die.
Finnick was right when he said that everyone was better off dead, but you've never had a choice. You're just a piece. You're just used -time and time again.
Sometimes the tears burn your face, but you don't wipe them away, and no one will do it for you. Peeta would have, but Peeta is gone. Peeta is off being tortured to death somewhere by President Snow.
Sometimes you're convinced you can hear his screams, and you claw at anything within reach, even if it's yourself. Especially if it's yourself.
He'd said to you, the night after the jabberjays had screamed with Prim's voice and stolen part of your sanity, that no one needed him. But Peeta was wrong -you'd told him as much. You needed him, then and you need him now. You need him so much -and his absence hurts most of all.
Sometimes you wake up from a merciful sleep, a medicated, dreamless one, and think you can hear Peeta breathing next to you. It's like reliving those few happy moments upon waking that you'd had during the Games all over again. The bliss of ignorance. The soothing balm of forgetting, for just a moment, all that has happened.
Those are always the worst mornings. You always tear the tubes out when you remember; when you find out it isn't true. Your arms are gorged and scarred from pulling the feeding tubes out so many times, and yet they still keep you alive. No matter how hard you try to kill yourself.
Sometimes you think that maybe you should have swallowed those damned berries and saved everyone all the trouble. Without you, Peeta would have won the Games, the Hob would be intact, none of the victors would have been Reaped, and District 12 would still exist. Everything would have been just as it had always been and you can't help but think that it would have been better than this.
Sometimes Prim comes to visit, but you don't talk to her, and you hate yourself for acting like your mother had after your father died.
Sometimes you don't even bother opening your eyes.
Most times you just lay there, and try not to think. You don't move, and you don't eat. You don't do anything but wait.
Most times you can't seem to decide what you're waiting for.
Sometimes you're waiting to die.
Sometimes you're waiting for more words you don't want to hear. About a stolen boy, that you may or may not be in love with. About a Capitol and a Revolution. About a District destroyed.
Sometimes you're just waiting to hear something that will make living worth while.
But, until then, you're waiting Katniss, while you try to forget or die.