Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust
I am ashes; we are all ashes.
I am dust; we are all dust.
Once, I was the Girl on Fire but now I am burnt black,
charcoal I’ve always abhorred.
My flame drowned by two kids and a husband,
start of a new life,
reminding me how I do not belong.
I love them, as much as I am able.
That isn’t much.
I was not made for love.
I was not made for love.
My sister left a hole in my heart,
just like the hole in herself.
I am not whole.
The forest is no comfort, not like it used to be.
The forest, like everything else, is full of ghosts.
The mockingjays scream Rue, over and over,
the deer beckon lost days with Gale,
flowers explode Prim and Peeta,
both too delicate for the world they were born in.
Rocks impress first kisses,
days haunted by death from the sky.
The trees all cackle the names of my friends,
stolen by a world too cruel, too cruel to remember us.
And the water, the water that crashes my father, blown to bits,
my name, my mother, abandoned in the maze of her own mind,
my childhood, ended with two words: Primrose Everdeen,
love, loss,
too many broken hearts.
Living is hard; all you ever do is remember your losses.
I have too many losses.
I lost the fire, the fire that used to drive me,
gave too much of it away.
Cinna kindled the fire, coached it into a steady blaze.
Without him, others built it into an inferno,
ensuring my consumption.
I destroyed myself.
I will destroy myself.
One arrow is all it took to destroy me.
I silenced the revolution; turned them all against me.
Those who had given me so much,
who I had given so much,
they lost faith in me.
I lost faith in me.
An outpouring of blood and roses smothered the embers,
after the flames had consumed everything else.
I need to escape those memories.
I’m going back to the fire.
Tell Peeta sorry for me.
--after the character Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games