Panorama of Panem

“I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there’s no relief in waking.”

“When I see him, I pull up short. His face is flushed from digging up the ground under the windows. In a wheelbarrow are five scraggly bushes[…]

“My nose twitches. It’s the smell. Cloying and artificial. A dab of white peeks out of a vase of dried flowers on my dresser. I approach it with cautious steps. There, all but obscured by its preserved cousins, is a fresh white rose. Perfect. Down to the last thorn and silken petal.

“Here it’s safe, here it’s warm Here the daisies guard you from every harm Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true Here is the place where I love you.”

“They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs.”

“Here the daisies guard you from every harm.”

“Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true”

“Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again.

“Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again.”

“When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it.”

“We learn to keep busy again. Peeta bakes. I hunt.”

“But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway.”

“Back upstairs, I throw open the bedroom windows to clear out the rest of Snow’s stench. But it still lingers, on my clothes and in my pores. I strip, and flakes of skin the size of playing cards cling to the garments. Avoiding the mirror, I step into the shower and scrub the roses from my hair, my body, my mouth.”