my lungs seem to gain extra capacity here {jacinta/patricia}

I spent so long trying to survive that I forgot how to live.

I exhale the dormant fumes sitting in my lungs, shroud myself in them, bathe in their stale arouma. I too feel stale, like I am stagnating, stuck staggering from day to day, month to month, until ten years have past, and I'm no better off than the day I left that cave.

Am I really no better off?

Was it all pointless?

Probably.

My joint has run out, so I flick it aside and sit in silence, waiting for the next craving to come along. Won't be long now. They come quicker and quicker, just like the Games do, just like the years do. Twenty-seven years old, and I feel forty. Sitting on this stage, in front of all these people, I'm just glad their eyes aren't on me. I don't have the strength to be a beacon anymore. All the spirit was beaten out of me.

I have a life that most would envy. A simple life of luxury, where the only inconvenience is the brief annual appearances I have to make in support of the Capitol. For that, I want for nothing, I need nothing.

I have a sister who by all accounts I should be ridiculously proud of. Two years clean, running for Mayor, trying to make a difference. Her cheeks have colour again, and her smile radiates like she's six years old all over again. She wants to change the world, and now she has a chance to do that. Considering we lived most of our childhoods on the streets, that's something of a miracle.

I have a godson who I love like my own, who is caring and loving and funny, and just a truly special little boy. He illuminates the darkest of days, brings joy where there is none. A candle against a hurricane. His Mother is one of my best friends, a woman I used to hate so much, but now the only person I can really trust. She is so, so strong.

I should be happy. I should be at peace. But I'm so numb, and I'm so alone, and the days feel like they don't matter at all. Devoid of meaning and purpose, and drifting away, like sand slipping between my fingers.

The crowd waits for Jacinta Salazar, District Seven's first Victor in living memory. The amount of spotlight that is going to follow her for the next ten years will cripple her. It'll break her, like it broke me. No one is strong enough for this shit.

I can't shake these dark thoughts that I'm getting late at night, heavy thoughts that brandish into the side of my head and leave a searing pain. Regrets churning over with guilt, and the biochemical reaction spills sick realisations that bring up the vodka and the whiskey, and leave me shaking and cold on the bathroom floor.

And when the thoughts leave me, and I'm alone again, I find myself wanting those thoughts to come back, so I'm not alone - So I'm not numb. I want to feel awful, because it's at least feeling something.

And that's fucking terrifying. I'm so scared, for the first time in years, I don't know what to do.

What will Jacinta do, to keep the people she loves safe? Will she lose it all, like I did? Will she have to cut off every person close to her, just to keep them safe? Because that's the cost. That's the Victor's burden.

I hope not. She seems a nice girl.
Or not, I don't even know. I didn't even watch the damn Games.

I push people away, tell myself I don't deserve their love or attention, and I don't even know why. I just do. I self-sabotage any attempts at happiness that come my way. I could have at least tried to fight Snow on Diamond, but I gave up, like I was happy to accept that I wasn't worth her time. Or her love.

And I'm not. I'm really not.

I used to be a supernova, but now I'm stardust, the remnants of a star that died, drifting through space. And one day I'll be dead. And no one will care.

And no one will remember.

Here comes the next craving.

The cold morning air bites at my shaking fingers. Bad circulation makes it difficult for me to light the tip of my badly-rolled-up cigarette. Fire licks at the paper, and the tobacco starts to burn. I drag slightly, and then inhale it all in. I wait, and exhale it all over again.

Hey, you can't smoke on stage!" A Peacekeeper to my left barks at me in an assertive hush.

"Bite me."