These Cindered Bones [a Peeta Mellark fanmix]
Full album art, tracklistings, and download links under the cut.
Special thanks to mad-teagirl for loaning me her set of these beautiful books. <3
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These Cindered Bones
A Peeta Mellark Fanmix
Disk One: The Hunger Games
1. Patrick Wolf - Idumea
And am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown
She zips back to the podium, and I don’t even have time to wish for Gale’s safety when she’s reading the name. “Peeta Mellark.”
Oh, no, I think. Not him. Because I recognize this name, although I have never spoken directly to its owner. Peeta Mellark.
No, the odds are not in my favor today.
I watch him as he makes his way toward the stage. Medium height, stocky build, ashy blond hair that falls in waves over his forehead. The shock of the moment is registering on his face, you can see his struggle to remain emotionless, but his blue eyes show the alarm I’ve seen so often in prey. Yet he climbs steadily onto the stage and takes his place.
Effie Trinket asks for volunteers, but no one steps forward. He has two older brothers, I know, I’ve seen them in the bakery, but one is probably too old now to volunteer and the other won’t. This is standard. Family devotion only goes so far for most people on reaping day. What I did was the radical thing.
The Hunger Games, Pages 25-26
2. The District - Firework
Do you know that there's still a chance for you
'Cause there's a spark in you
“You know what my mother said to me when she came to say good-bye, as if to cheer me up, she says maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner. Then I realized, she didn’t mean me, she meant you!” bursts out Peeta.
“Oh, she meant you,” I say with a wave of dismissal.
“She said, ‘She’s a survivor, that one.’ She is,” says Peeta. That pulls me up short. Did his mother really say that about me? Did she rate me over her son? I see the pain in Peeta’s eyes and know he isn’t lying.
Suddenly I’m behind the bakery and I can feel the chill of the rain running down my back, the hollowness in my belly. I sound eleven years old when I speak. “But only because someone helped me.”
Peeta’s eyes flicker down to the roll in my hands, and I know he remembers that day, too. But he just shrugs. “People will help you in the arena. They’ll be tripping over each other to sponsor you.”
“No more than you,” I say.
Peeta rolls his eyes at Haymitch. “She has no idea. The effect she can have.” He runs his fingernail along the wood grain in the table, refusing to look at me.
The Hunger Games, Pages 90-91
3. Erland and the Carnival - Love Is A Killing Thing
Go dig my grave long, wide, and deep
Up above put a pure white dove
A marble stone at head and feet
Let the world know I died for love
Peeta sighs. "Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping."
Sounds of sympathy from the crowd. Unrequited love they can relate to.
“She have another fellow?" asks Caesar.
“I don’t know, but a lot of boys like her," says Peeta.
“So, here’s what you do. You win, you go home. She can’t turn you down then, eh?" says Caesar encouragingly.
“I don’t think it’s going to work out. Winning...won’t help in my case," says Peeta.
“Why ever not?" says Caesar, mystified.
Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. "Because... because... she came here with me.”
The Hunger Games, Page 130
4. Max Richter - Iconography
[Instrumental]
“I don't know how to say it exactly. Only… I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?” he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself? “I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not.”
The Hunger Games, Page 141
5. Civil Twilight - Teardrop
Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
Fearless on my breath
“What are you still doing here?” he hisses at me. I stare un- comprehendingly as a trickle of water drips off a sting under his ear. His whole body starts sparkling as if he’s been dipped in dew. “Are you mad?” He’s prodding me with the shaft of the spear now. “Get up! Get up!” I rise, but he’s still pushing at me. What? What is going on? He shoves me away from him hard. “Run!” he screams. “Run!”
The Hunger Games, Page 193
6. Strangers Die Every Day - Safer in the Ground
[Instrumental]
“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”
I whip around. It’s come from the left, so I can’t pick it up very well. And the voice was hoarse and weak. Still, it must have been Peeta. Who else in the arena would call me swee- theart? My eyes peruse the bank, but there’s nothing. Just mud, the plants, the base of the rocks.
“Peeta?” I whisper. “Where are you?” There’s no answer. Could I just have imagined it? No, I’m certain it was real and very close at hand, too. “Peeta?” I creep along the bank.
“Well, don’t step on me.”
I jump back. His voice was right under my feet. Still there’s nothing. Then his eyes open, unmistakably blue in the brown mud and green leaves. I gasp and am rewarded with a hint of white teeth as he laughs.
It’s the final word in camouflage. Forget chucking weights around. Peeta should have gone into his private session with the Gamemakers and painted himself into a tree. Or a boulder. Or a muddy bank full of weeds.
“Close your eyes again,” I order. He does, and his mouth, too, and completely disappears. Most of what I judge to be his body is actually under a layer of mud and plants. His face and arms are so artfully disguised as to be invisible. I kneel beside him. “I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off.”
Peeta smiles. “Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying.”
The Hunger Games, Page 252
7. Pickering Pick - Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had can make a good man bad
So for once in my life let me get what I want
Lord knows it would be the first time
“Katniss,” he says. I go over to him and brush the hair back from his eyes. “Thanks for finding me.”
“You would have found me if you could,” I say. His forehead’s burning up. Like the medicine’s having no effect at all. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m scared he’s going to die.
The Hunger Games, Page 260
8. Michael Schulte - Set Fire To The Rain
I let it fall, my heart
And as it fell you rose to claim it
It was dark and I was over
Until you kissed my lips and you saved me.
My hands they're strong, but my knees were far too weak
To stand in your arms without falling to your feet
“They’re sweet as syrup,” he says, taking the last spoonful. “Syrup.” His eyes widen as he realizes the truth. I clamp my hand over his mouth and nose hard, forcing him to swallow instead of spit. He tries to make himself vomit the stuff up, but it’s too late, he’s already losing consciousness. Even as he fades away, I can see in his eyes what I’ve done is unforgivable.
I sit back on my heels and look at him with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction. A stray berry stains his chin and I wipe it away. “Who can’t lie, Peeta?” I say, even though he can’t hear me.
The Hunger Games, Page 277
9. Justin Dubé - We Found Love
Now we’re standing side by side
As your shadow crosses mine
What it takes to come alive
It’s the way I’m feeling I just can’t deny
But I’ve gotta let it go
We found love in a hopeless place
“So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says.
“Oh, please,” I say, laughing.
“No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew - just like your mother - I was a goner,” Peeta says. “Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.”
“Without success,” I add.
“Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,” says Peeta.
For a moment, I’m almost foolishly happy and then confusion sweeps over me. Because we’re supposed to be making up this stuff, playing at being in love not actually being in love. But Peeta’s story has a ring of truth to it. That part about my father and the birds. And I did sing the first day of school, although I don’t remember the song. And that red plaid dress… there was one, a hand-me-down to Prim that got washed to rags after my father’s death.
It would explain another thing, too. Why Peeta took a beat- ing to give me the bread on that awful hollow day. So, if those details are true… could it all be true?
“You have a… remarkable memory,” I say haltingly.
“I remember everything about you,” says Peeta, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re the one who wasn’t paying attention.”
“I am now,” I say.
“Well, I don’t have much competition here,” he says.
I want to draw away, to close those shutters again, but I know I can’t. It’s as if I can hear Haymitch whispering in my ear, “Say it! Say it!”
I swallow hard and get the words out. “You don’t have much competition anywhere.” And this time, it’s me who leans in.
The Hunger Games, Pages 301-302
10. Bon Iver - Woods
I'm up in the woods
I'm down on my mind
I'm building a still
To slow down the time
We stand there a while, locked in an embrace, feeling each other, the sunlight, the rustle of the leaves at our feet. Then without a word, we break apart and head for the lake.
The Hunger Games, Page 327
11. Clint Mansell - We’re Going Home
[Instrumental]
If Peeta and I were both to die, or they thought we were...
My fingers fumble with the pouch on my belt, freeing it. Peeta sees it and his hand clamps on my wrist. "No, I won't let you."
"Trust me," I whisper. He holds my gaze for a long moment then lets go. I loosen the top of the pouch and pour a few spoonfuls of berries into his palm. Then I fill my own. "On the count of three?"
Peeta leans down and kisses me once, very gently. "The count of three," he says.
We stand, our backs pressed together, our empty hands locked tight.
"Hold them out. I want everyone to see," he says.
I spread out my fingers, and the dark berries glisten in the sun. I give Peeta's hand one last squeeze as a signal, as a good-bye, and we begin counting. "One." Maybe I'm wrong. "Two." Maybe they don't care if we both die. "Three!" It's too late to change my mind. I lift my hand to my mouth taking one last look at the world. The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare.
The frantic voice of Claudius Templesmith shouts above them. "Stop! Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark! I give you - the tributes of District 12!”
The Hunger Games, Pages 344-345
12. The National - About Today [Warrior Version]
Tonight you just close your eyes
And I just watch you slip away
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta extend his hand. I look at him, unsure. “One more time? For the audience?” he says. His voice isn’t angry. It’s hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.
I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.
The Hunger Games, Pages 373-374
Disk Two: Catching Fire
13. Yellow Ostrich - Bread [Daytrotter Version]
To go away for quite a while
If that is what will make you smile
That's something I will gladly do
Because I am in love with you
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. You were just keeping us alive. But I don’t want us to go on like this, ignoring each other in real life and falling into the snow every time there’s a camera around. So I though if I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at just being friends.”
Catching Fire, Page 51
14. Birdlips - Blades of Grass
I must've learned something from the blades of grass
How to bend in the wind and to let things pass
Now the only regret that I've ever had
Is that I didn't give you the shirt off my back
I must've learned something from the way you smile
How things can be perfect once in a while
“Let’s start with something more basic. Isn’t it strange that I know you’d risk your life to save mine… but I don’t know what your favorite color is?” he says.
A smile creeps onto my lips. “Green. What’s yours?”
“Orange,” he says.
“Orange? Like Effie’s hair?” I say.
“A bit more muted,” he says. “More like… sunset.”
Catching Fire, Page 52
15. J. Tillman - Steel on Steel
Destined to survive
And relive every night
Like my hands were tied
“Does it help? To paint them out?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m a little less afraid of going to sleep at night, or I tell myself I am,” he says. “But they haven’t gone anywhere.”
Catching Fire, Page 54
16. Sanders Bohike - Search and Destroy
They buried their dead with the flowers in the field
With wounds so deep they never healed
They gathered their children all on the shore
Gonna wait for you to search us and destroy
“Then I made things worse, too. By giving the money,” says Peeta. Suddenly, he strikes out at a lamp that sits precariously on a crate and knocks it across the room, where it shatters against the floor. “This has to stop. Right now. This- this- game you two play, where you tell each other secrets but keep them from me like I’m too inconsequential or stupid or weak to handle them.”
Catching Fire, Page 65
17. Angus & Julia Stone - Silver Coin
Heard the rattle from the train
Sounds of a hundred people, maybe more
Cut through the ropes before you came
I had a dream that you were gone
Effie starts giving me pills to sleep, but they don't work. Not well enough. I drift off only to be roused by nightmares that have increased in number and intensity. Peeta, who spends much of the night roaming the train, hears me screaming as I struggle to break out of the haze of drugs that merely prolong the horrible dreams. He manages to wake me and calm me down. Then he climbs into bed to hold me until I fall back to sleep. After that, I refuse the pills. But every night I let him into my bed. We manage the darkness as we did in the arena, wrapped in each other's arms, guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment. Nothing else happens, but our arrangement quickly becomes a subject of gossip on the train.
Catching Fire, Page 72
18. Bon Iver - I Can’t Make You Love Me
Morning will come
And I'll do what's right
“Peeta. About what I said yesterday, about running-” I begin.
“I know,” he says. “There's nothing to explain.”
I see the loaves of bread on the counter in the pale, snowy morning light. The blue shadows under his eyes. I wonder if he slept at all. Couldn't have been long. I think of his agreeing to go with me yesterday, his stepping up beside me to protect Gale, his willingness to throw his lot in with mine entirely when I give him so little in return. No matter what I do, I'm hurting someone. “Peeta-”
“Just go to bed, okay?” he says.
Catching Fire, Page 120
19. Max Richter - This Picture Of Us. P.
[Instrumental]
When Peeta holds out his arms, I walk straight into them. It's the first time since they announced the Quarter Quell that he's offered me any sort of affection. He's been more like a very demanding trainer, always pushing, always insisting Haymitch and I run faster, eat more, know our enemy better. Lover? Forget about that. He abandoned any pretense of even being my friend. I wrap my arms tightly around his neck before he can order me to do push-ups or something. Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go.
Catching Fire, Page 193
20. Fort Atlantic - Up From The Ground
Up from the ground
Up from the cold
I’ve been here before
I know how this goes
The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol's rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. And if I really could save Peeta ... in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal. Because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.
Peeta would lose it if he knew I was thinking any of this, so I only say, “So what should we do with our last few days?”
“I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,” Peeta replies.
“Come on, then,” I say, pulling him into my room.
Catching Fire, Page 244
21. Birdlips - Some Kind Of Death
What was it you said about stitches and mending?
That we'd do anything to keep this moment from ending
We couldn't do anything to keep this moment from ending
No one bothers us. By late afternoon, I lie with my head on Peeta's lap, making a crown of flowers while he fiddles with my hair, claiming he's practicing his knots. After a while, his hands go still. “What?” I ask.
“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,” he says.
Usually this sort of comment, the kind that hints of his undying love for me, makes me feel guilty and awful. But I feel so warm and relaxed and beyond worrying about a future I'll never have, I just let the word slip out. “Okay.”
I can hear the smile in his voice. “Then you'll allow it?”
“I'll allow it,” I say.
Catching Fire, Pages 245-246
22. Clogs - Last Song
If this was our last time
What would we do?
What would we say then?
Everything. That's what Peeta wants me to take from him.
I wait for him to mention the baby, to play to the cameras, but he doesn't. And that's how I know that none of this is part of the Games. That he is telling me the truth about what he feels.
“No one really needs me,” he says, and there's no self-pity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends. But they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on. I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.
“I do,” I say. “I need you.” He looks upset, takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, and that's no good, no good at all, because he'll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I'll just get confused. So before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss.
Catching Fire, Page 352
23. Port O’Brien - A Bird Flies By [Daytrotter Version]
Pearls! Diamonds! Pearls! Diamonds!
That way when you are gone I am not forgotten
Out through the chimney
And into the sky
The clouds they are empty
And a bird flies by
Peeta rinses the pearl off in the water and hands it to me. “For you.” I hold it out on my palm and examine its iridescent surface in the sunlight. Yes, I will keep it. For the few remaining hours of my life I will keep it close. This last gift from Peeta. The only one I can really accept. Perhaps it will give me strength in the final moments.
“Thanks,” I say, closing my fist around it. I look coolly into the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent, the person who would keep me alive at his own expense. And I promise myself I will defeat his plan.
The laughter drains from those eyes, and they are staring so intensely into mine, it's like they can read my thoughts. “The locket didn't work, did it?” Peeta says, even though Finnick is right there. Even though everyone can hear him. “Katniss?”
“It worked,” I say.
“But not the way I wanted it to,” he says, averting his glance. After that he will look at nothing but oysters.
Catching Fire, Pages 365-366
24. Grizzly Bear - Colorado
You left me adrift
Colorado, what now?
All I can think of is Peeta, lying on a similar table somewhere, while they try to break him for information he doesn't even have.
Catching Fire, Page 388
Disk Three: Mockingjay
25. Magnolia Electric Co. - Map of the Falling Sky
We become the diesel, we become the smoke
We become the prairie, we become the spark
And the only song coming in on the radio
At the mention of my name, Peeta’s face contorts in effort. “Katniss… how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you… in thirteen…” He inhales sharply, as if fighting for air; his eyes look insane. “Dead by morning!”
Off camera, Snow orders, “End it!” Beetee throws the whole thing into chaos by flashing a still shot of me standing in front of the hospital at three-second intervals. But between the images, we are privy to the real-life action being played out on the set. Peeta’s attempt to continue speaking. The camera knocked down to record the white tiled floor. The scuffle of boots. The impact of the blow that’s inseparable from Peeta’s cry of pain.
And his blood as it splatters the tiles.
Mockingjay, Page 133-134
26. Max Richter - Found Song For P
[Instrumental]
No, not deranged, I remind myself. Hijacked. That’s the word I heard pass between Plutarch and
Haymitch as I was wheeled past them in the hallway. Hijacked. I don’t know what it means.
Mockingjay, Page 179
27. City and Colour - Sleeping Sickness
I've become the simple souvenir of someone's kill
And like the sea I’m constantly changing from calm to ill
Madness fills my heart and soul
As if the great divide could swallow me whole
Oh how I’m breaking down
Out in the hall, away from the cameras, I ask, “What’s happening to him?”
Haymitch shakes his head. “I don’t know. None of us knows. Sometimes he’s almost rational, and then, for no reason, he goes off again. Doing the cake was a kind of therapy. He’s been working on it for days. Watching him… he seemed almost like before.”
Mockingjay, Page 228
28. Ólafur Arnalds - Lost Song
[Instrumental]
I’ve just reached the door when his voice stops me. “Katniss. I remember about the bread.”
The bread. Our one moment of real connection before the Hunger Games.
“They showed you the tape of me talking about it,” I say.
“No. Is there a tape of you talking about it? Why didn’t the Capitol use it against me?” he asks.
“I made it the day you were rescued,” I answer. The pain in my chest wraps around my ribs like a vise.
The dancing was a mistake. “So what do you remember?”
“You. In the rain,” he says softly. “Digging in our trash bins. Burning the bread. My mother hitting me. Taking the bread out for the pig but then giving it to you instead.”
“That’s it. That’s what happened,” I say. “The next day, after school, I wanted to thank you. But I didn’t know how.”
“We were outside at the end of the day. I tried to catch your eye. You looked away. And then… for some reason, I think you picked a dandelion.” I nod. He does remember. I have never spoken about that moment aloud. “I must have loved you a lot.”
Mockingjay, Pages 230-231
29. The National - Terrible Love [Alternate Version]
And I can't fall asleep without a little help
It takes a while to settle down
My shivered bones
Until the panic's out
It takes an ocean not to break
“Ally.” Peeta says the word slowly, tasting it. “Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancée. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I’ll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out.” He weaves the rope in and out of his fingers. “The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.”
The cessation of rhythmic breathing suggests that either people have woken or have never really been asleep at all. I suspect the latter.
Finnick’s voice rises from a bundle in the shadows. “Then you should ask, Peeta. That’s what Annie does.”
“Ask who?” Peeta says. “Who can I trust?”
“Well, us for starters. We’re your squad,” says Jackson.
“You’re my guards,” he points out.
“That, too,” she says. “But you saved a lot of lives in Thirteen. It’s not the kind of thing we forget.”
In the quiet that follows, I try to imagine not being able to tell illusion from reality. Not knowing if Prim or my mother loved me. If Snow was my enemy. If the person across the heater saved or sacrificed me. With very little effort, my life rapidly morphs into a nightmare. I suddenly want to tell Peeta everything about who he is, and who I am, and how we ended up here. But I don’t know how to start. Worthless. I’m worthless.
At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. “Your favorite color... It’s green?”
“That’s right.” Then I think of something to add. “And yours is orange.”
“Orange?” He seems unconvinced.
“Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset,” I say. “At least, that’s what you told me once.”
“Oh.” He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. “Thank you.”
But more words tumble out. “You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.”
Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.
Mockingjay, Pages 270-271
30. Jeff Buckley - So Real
And I couldn't awake from the nightmare
That sucked me in and pulled me under
Pulled me under
Oh, that was so real
I love you, but I’m afraid to love you
In the fluorescent light, the circles under his eyes look like bruises. “There’s still time. You should sleep.” Unresisting, he lies back down, but just stares at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a wounded animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn’t recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. It’s the first time I have voluntarily touched him since the last arena.
“You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,” he whispers.
“Real,” I answer. It seems to require more explanation. “Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.” After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep.
Mockingjay, Page 302
31. Bill Ryder-Jones - A Leave Taking
[Instrumental]
It’s a long shot, it’s suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. “Don’t let him take you from me.”
Peeta’s panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. “No. I don’t want to…”
I clench his hands to the point of pain. “Stay with me.”
His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy.
“Always,” he murmurs.
Mockingjay, Page 314
32. James Howards Newton - The Vote
[Instrumental]
Through the water in the glass, I see a distorted image of one of Peeta’s hands. The burn marks. We are both fire mutts now. My eyes travel up to where the flames licked across his forehead, singeing away his brows but just missing his eyes. Those same blue eyes that used to meet mine and then flit away at school. Just as they do now.
Mockingjay, Pages 368-369
33. Greg Laswell - The Woman’s Work
I know you have a little life in you yet
I know you have a lot of strength left
“Good night,” I whisper to the bow in my hand and feel it go still. I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink into flesh. I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Peeta’s eyes, only now they hold my gaze. Blood runs from the teeth marks on the hand he clamped over my nightlock. “Let me go!” I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp.
“I can’t,” he says.
Mockingjay, Page 373
34. James Vincent McMorrow - Follow You Down To The Red Oak Tree
Names get carved in the red oak tree
Of the ones who stay and the ones who leave
I will wait for you there with these cindered bones
So follow me, follow me down
“You’re back,” I say.
“Dr. Aurelius wouldn’t let me leave the Capitol until yesterday,” Peeta says. “By the way, he said to tell you he can’t keep pretending he’s treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone.”
He looks well. Thin and covered with burn scars like me, but his eyes have lost that clouded, tortured look. He’s frowning slightly, though, as he takes me in. I make a halfhearted effort to push my hair out of my eyes and realize it’s matted into clumps. I feel defensive. “What are you doing?”
“I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her,” he says. “I thought we could plant them along the side of the house.”
I look at the bushes, the clods of dirt hanging from their roots, and catch my breath as the word rose registers. I’m about to yell vicious things at Peeta when the full name comes to me. Not plain rose but evening primrose. The flower my sister was named for.
Mockingjay, Pages 382-383
35. Radical Face - Welcome Home
Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done
Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass
Was never much but we made the most
Welcome home
We learn to keep busy again. Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives. Fortunately, the geese can take pretty good care of themselves. We’re not alone. A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home. With the mines closed, they plow the ashes into the earth and plant food. Machines from the Capitol break ground for a new factory where we will make medicines. Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again.
Mockingjay, Pages 387-388
36. Green or Blue - Yellow
Your skin
Oh yeah, your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
And you know
You know I love you so
You know I love you so
Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. 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. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.
So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?”
I tell him, “Real.”
Mockingjay, Page 388
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