Johanna Mason is a girl
Who throws away her future
By clinging to her past
And lives in a house full of ghosts.
Her family
Has died for her sin
For refusing a man who doesn't understand the word no
She is as guilty for their deaths
As the man who struck the match
To burn them bright.
It takes her nine days
To cry over their deaths
Even at their funeral
As she throws soil at their final resting place
She expects them to come and nag her
For wearing black instead of light blue to a funeral
But they never arrive
For they now are only names on stone
And a bit of her has gone with them.
Relatives come to tell her
It will be okay
Death is part of life
When her cousin dares say she understands
Johanna throws a mug at her head
Her cousin will never understand
She isn't a killer and an orphan
And she doesn't have a guilt so great
It makes breathing hard.
She is losing her mind
Still she smells the tea her mom enjoyed
And hears the music box her brother made for her
When she was young and naive
She could swear the tea and the music
Had burnt with her family.
Nightmares
She has at least one everynight
They die in her dreams
A thousand times
In a thousand ways
She is dead behind the eyes
And no medicine can get her back.
Solitude is her only company
She has chosen it that way
She doesn't want to bury anyone else
She is sick of wearing black
And being pitied
She doesn't want anyone to witness her
Cry and crumble
She locks herself in the bathroom
And in the mirror she sees the girl she was in the interviews
Makeup destroyed and big doe eyes filled with tears
Only this time
She has no one waiting for her back home
And her tears mean something.
She doesn't want to cry
She doesn't need the guilt
Which weighs her down and poisons her
So she feels nothing
Being numb is so much easier
But actually she still feels everything
Only pretending to be numb is easier than admitting she is cracking and collapsing
Where she found her damnation
She finds her salvation
The first year as a mentor in the games
She meets Odair
Who tells her she is a survivor
And she has gone through worse
He is just a child whose innocence was robbed
He understands
Johanna believes him
And she still doesn't know why but asks him for a hug
His warmth actually made her want to smile.
She meets Mags
Who fills her stomach
With tea and food she has never tried
And makes her see the wonders of being alive
She meets Haymitch
Who tells her stories
Of a girl he thought he loved
But died before he really knew
He gives her a bottle of gin
So she won't have any nightmares.
She finally starts living
Instead of just breathing through her burnt out lungs
426 days after she loses her family and self
She isn't the same girl
She is more bitter, more aggressive, more impulsive, more snarky
However she is no longer numb and that is a victory itself
And it is the first step to recovery.
This is for the lovely Yew, I really hope you like it and please leave your thoughts, I love hearing them.
