Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.

I watch her go

She is five. It is her first day of school so I put her in a clean red dress I made just last week and braid her dark hair in two. I take her to school, nervous and anxious to leave her among strangers. But she tells me it's alright.

She's not nervous at all; her gray eyes shine with eagerness. She gives me and her baby sister a quick kiss and joins her classmates.

With a heavy heart, I watch her go.

She is eleven, Prim is seven, and their father is dead. I hear them, their words begging, but I cannot catch them. Prim runs a comb through my hair, but I cannot feel it. They feed me our last piece of bread, but I cannot taste it. She is telling me something I cannot hear. So I don't respond. Suddenly, she takes me by the shoulders and shakes me violently. She is screaming now, but no words reach me. Prim cries silently by her side. Too shocked for anything, I remain as still as before. She takes her sister gently, and pushes her out the door. With their schoolbags on her back, her eyes, now dark and cold, take one last look at me, all light extinguished from them.

I can only watch her go.

She is sixteen, and District 12's first volunteer in a long, long time. Today is the Reaping for the 74th Hunger Games, and I know I cannot take both daughters home with me tonight. For her radical sacrifice, the district offers her a final salute. A salute reserved for the dead. She is as good as dead now, given how the odds haven't been in our favor for over 20 years. But she's brave, keeping her tears in rein.

Her face is stoic as the Peacekeepers take her away. At that moment, she looks so much like her father; it's like losing him a second time.

I almost lose myself again, if it weren't for the small hand clutching mine. She made me promise to move on no matter what. And so I will.

Utterly powerless, I watch her go.

She is seventeen, one of the winners of the 74th Hunger Games, and engaged to the boy she met in the Games.

I just got her back. Why must I lose her again so soon?

As much as I don't approve of her dating, let alone getting married at such a young age, I hardly think I have a say in the matter anymore. I haven't been a mother to her in years. She's been on her own since her father died.

Still, she's my daughter and I don't like it when people in the Capitol urge them to be affectionate in public. She's too young. But I know she can take care of herself. And it doesn't hurt that the boy is decent to her. But she's still too young. I am losing her soon. She's slipping through my fingers so fast, I can't hold on to her any longer.

I always forget, she's no longer all mine. I lost her the moment she volunteered for Prim. No, it happened earlier. I lost her when her father died and I almost let them die.

So when the Capitol clamors for her, I have no choice but to watch her go.

She is still seventeen, a survivor of the last Games, but they're taking her away to compete again. It's the Third Quarter Quell, another chance for her to die. The nightmares from the first one haven't even gone and they're about to plant more into her head.

We weren't allowed to say goodbye, not this time. They have whisked her away to the Capitol.

It could be the last time I'll ever see her, but I couldn't even watch her go.

How can she still be seventeen after all that has happened? The Third Quarter Quell was never concluded as the Rebellion began. A revolution that would, once again, take my daughter from me.

I barely see her, even if we stay within the same compound in District 13. They've made her our Mockingjay, the face of the revolution. And they expect so much from her. They expect her to do things she never even volunteered to do. They do not realize that she is just a child-my child-who deserves to be cared for by her mother, not shooting enemy planes in a District 8 all caught up in flames.

I hate it that she's a puppet for people who couldn't care less about her safety. I am notified that they've just assigned her to a Star Squad on a mission to the Capitol. Notified. Nobody clears anything with me, after all. Especially when it comes to her. But I want her to stay here in District 13, safe and sound with me and Prim. I've had to lose her too many times. She might not make it home this time.

I'd hate to watch her go.

She is almost eighteen, still alive against all odds.

When she survived everything they put her through, I thought that maybe I would be allowed to keep both of my daughters. I never imagined that if they couldn't take one, they would find a way to take the other. I didn't even know Prim was going to the Capitol until news of her death was delivered to me. Nobody clears anything with me. Especially when it comes to my children.

Katniss lives, but we've given each other up long time ago. In a way, I've lost them both.

Maybe I was never supposed to have them both. I should have realized as early as the 74th Reaping when Prim was reaped but Katniss intervened. We may have won the battle, but I have lost the war.

I was the wife to a dead husband, and now, the mother to a dead child.

This is why I can never go home. Not even for Katniss. It's too late for us to be a proper family. But she's going to be alright, I know it. So many are watching over the Mockingjay now. She will never be left on her own, like I did to her years before. So I go to where I am most needed-District 4, where a hospital is being built.

I regret what has become of us. But for both of us to survive this, we have to step back a little bit and let each other go.

So when it's time for her to leave the hospital for District 12, I trust her in Haymitch's care. Clinging to the hope that she would understand, I wasn't even there to watch her go.