AU to epilogue. If you do not understand and wish to, simply ask. Some of it I will explain, but you can't ask a poet to explain the poem; it just doesn't work like that. Not a happy poem. Free Verse. No Rhyme. I do not own The Hunger Games.

The Unending Cycle

We were foolish.

Foolish to assume that one ghastly dictator's end

Wouldn't lead us to another.

Foolish to believe that some sort of peaceful relation

Could be created between the Districts.

Foolish to assume that the one leading our forces to victory

Was really anything more than the spineless politician

Who choked on the blood of his own failure.

Katniss Everdeen saved us that day.

Saved us from the foolishness

Of our own desperate hopes.

Saved us from the awful pit of despair

We were digging for ourselves

By shooting the one woman who controlled them.

We owe her all of our lives.

What's one or two per district?

What's a dozen or so lives

Compared to the havoc we've created?

A tribute to the fallen princess,

The beautiful warrior.

The Girl on Fire.

The Liberator of Panem.

What's a single spare life in comparison to

The

Great

Mockingjay?

We were foolish.

Foolish to assume our mascot

Had anything under that pretty exterior.

Foolish to believe that she was the reason

We were still alive,

Still home with our loved ones.

Foolish to assume that the arrow that pierced the New Dictator

Was really anything more than a carved stick

Leaving the fingers of girl who was more broken inside

Than any other standing before us.

Our own stupidity condemned us that day.

Condemned us to the eternal, unending circle of

Life,

Pain,

And Loss.

Condemned us to the fate of a broken teenager,

Desperate for revenge, for solace,

And unable to attain it.

We owe her nothing.

What's her life

Compared to the hundreds she's slaughtered?

What's her life

Compared to the families she's destroyed?

A tribute to the one fallen from grace,

To the plain and ugly truth.

The girl who lights the pyres.

The Sovereign of Panem.

Ever so rash were we,

To be stuck on bended knee,

Paying homage to a queen

So much more foolish than he.