{moonlight and smoke} meghan ; blitz

The city shines with a thousand false stars as its citizens flood the streets below. I can hear them crying our names as we greet their thirst for blood welcoming faces with our own Cheshire-cat grins and practiced hand gestures.
(I am in a chariot of fire and ice with my blood still burning. I am their knight in a shining armor as I grace the Capitol with my endless bravery. I am a tribute.) The chemicals I so frequently introduced to my stale lungs have spread throughout my entire body, playing house in my pores and dancing waltzes with my hair. (I no longer recognize the crying boy I once was). The world has too quickly slipped from my fingers: any thoughts I once had of holding onto my identity has crumbled. It's futility much like trying to hold water in cupped hands, (you want to drink but your thirst is gone).


I am alone though I am surrounded by thousands. By twenty three. By more. By the ghosts of the games which lived their glory and then fell into the ashes of history. My fate would soon be the same. I would be forgotten.


I hardly notice as the climbing tower of smoke drifts past the confides of the tributes holding-cage. It fades into nothingness and I long to feel myself fading with it. (when can I choose my own fate?)


Then the voice behind me speaks, and I am back in my reality. (oh, why must you talk to me, dear? We are only being sent off to kill each other. Haven't you heard? To live you must die, to die you must live. But ultimately, what's the point? Our insides have already turned to ice). I acknowledge her without a word, and offer up my best Capitol pack of death, stolen from a peacekeeper without so much as a second glance (what does he care? all he has to do is snap his fingers and the finest rolls of his addiction are offered on a silver platter)


"Take your pick, sweetheart."