A/N: This poem came to me while binge-reading the entire Hunger Games trilogy during this past January. During Mockingjay, I was unsurprisingly distressed to see the disturbing change in my favorite character, Peeta, after he'd been hijacked. Quite frankly, I found myself on Katniss's side: Peeta had turned into an uncaring, biting, vicious little monster. Unwittingly, I gave him up for lost just as much as Katniss did.

But early one morning, I read the scene in Chapter 19 where Katniss yells at Peeta after he's sent to join her unit and then she gets that call from Haymitch. I must say, I had more respect for Haymitch during that scene than I'd ever had for him before. I was really struck and rather abashed myself at his words, just as Katniss was. What is Peeta going through? What must it be like to be treated that way after all he'd been through, especially by the person he must be most confused about? What would it be like to be "stranded in the shadowy world of the hijacking," as Katniss describes it?

This poem was what came to me that morning in answer to those questions. – SG

Stranded
by Sauron Gorthaur

Distorted, changing memories flicker through my mind.
I dash down darkened corridors, only hoping that I find
what I've lost. But every window's shrouded black.
Still I press on forward with no chance of turning back;
If there's one thing that I know, it's that I can't turn back.

I see them all around me: suspicious, shining eyes,
and yet what I'm seeing must still be wrapped in lies.
Truth and falsehoods web me round in a choking mist –
One moment I am being killed, the next I'm being kissed.
But are they so very different now: being killed and being kissed?

They tell me that I loved once in a faded day,
but now I'm filled with terrors that I try to scream away.
My hatred for this little bird stirs within me still;
Can I still be called a human when my instinct is to kill?
No, I don't feel very human when I want so much to kill.

I feel like some animal, a mindless, vicious mutt;
The insults I scream at you only bounce back to cut
me to the bone. I'm screaming at a glass;
I accuse you of what I fear I shall bring to pass.
I fear that I'm the weapon that will bring this death to pass.

I've played some cruel games before, but these are the worst yet,
now that they've caught my very mind in their dreadful net.
I'm dragged through these hungry halls, frightened and alone –
Please, help me someone who knows what I have known!

Katniss, why won't you tell me what both of us have known…?