(we're so starving.)

It's five A.M. when you grope for the pills. You're tired as hell, but you shove them in your mouth and dry swallow and energy slowly surges through you.

You're not quite as drunk now, the only downside. The light is too flattering, but you're glad to notice your hair is still utterly perfect and the glitter dusting your face is still half presentable. You repaint your lips, bright red like the strawberries on that delicious-looking shortcake you remind yourself you have to try.

You don't remember what sleeping feels like and you don't care.

[What feels like] five minutes later, you enter that bathroom again.

You down the glass easily, liking the sound it makes as it shatters. But then your knees sink (god, did you rip your tights?) and you're clutching the porcelain rim of the toilet so hard some of your fingernails crack. But they're not real, so it doesn't matter.

You realize you hate this, wine and cake and god knows what else that looks and smells and tastes like shit and churns down the drain so prettily.

You repaint your lips bright red, like the red swirls in the drain you tell yourself is just the strawberry shortcake.

You ate the whole cake, after all.

Five times you went back.

You don't even like eating, but you do it anyway. That sluggish feeling returns and why your stomach not bursting open, spilling every goddamn thing you just ate?

That might have to do with the strawberry shortcake. You returned because you couldn't get that heavenly taste out of your mouth, and you found another pristine cake waiting. You're not just going to let it get stale.

You eat until there's nothing left but crumbs and icing smeared on a glass plate.

By the fifth, you throw up so hard it honestly hurts, you know your hair doesn't look utterly perfect anymore, and was there even glitter on your face to begin with?

You knew it was blood the first time but you couldn't face it. Because you didn't drink anything but wine, yet there's still that lurid red that lingers in your eyes even when you shut them.

Blood is something for stupider, inferior people, not you. Blood is for the Hunger Games. Sweat is for the Games, too, for the usually ugly kids you couldn't care less about unless you bet on them and lost.

Your lips are pink (how horribly natural) and there has to be a rip somewhere in your Capitol-seal-patterned tights—didn't you hear that god-awful tearing sound?

[And you're hungry, of all things.] You wonder if there's any strawberry shortcake left. It's seven-oh-five and the sun's rising and you feel like you're going insane. You cough, and your hand comes away a gorgeous ruby-red.

A universe away, you hear a cannon fire. A collective groan.

You've done this practically a million times. It only took five to realize you were dying.

[But you're invincible, aren't you?]