Love Letter to the Hunger Games

 I had forgotten to post this when I wrote it.  We were assigned to write a love letter to a book for class.  I chose the Hunger Games Trilogy, and I may have gotten a little carried away.  =)  I hope you like it.

September 22, 2011

To the Girl who was on Fire:

            Katniss, you’re everything I’ve been looking for in a YA novel since I passed the gateway into my twenties.  I had been missing the hypnotism of a well-written adventure book worth staying up late for.  You entered my bed full-bodied and deliciously immediate, displaying a stubborn heroine complete with her own arsenal of physical and emotional explosions.  In all our combined tragedy, we were an ideal match.

            You appeared at the perfect time—when yet another of my relationships crumbled to pieces.  The recovery process had seemed impossible, and I remember pulling your hard-bound spine from the shelves in my housemate’s room one night.  I was seeking something—anything to steer my attention away from my own memories.

            That night your colored sleeve lay abandoned, like my dinner, across the room. Your black cover seemed naked and alluring as you waited there on my pillow.  You softened my empty bed, and gave me a legitimate reason to avoid human contact and stay holed up in my room.  Our relationship really began as the sun came up—light dancing off the beads I had hanging over my window.  My dreams had turned into nightmares in the early-morning hours, and I had woken to escape them and feed my growling stomach.

I never made it to the kitchen.  Instead, you were there, and you filled more than just the empty place in my bed.  Somehow, you managed to satisfy my stomach, too.  You took my hand and wrenched me into Panem, tumbling under the chain-link fence of District 12, and putting me face to face with Gale and Peeta and Prim.  You didn’t give me time to think, and for that, I can look back now and be grateful. 

Our relationship was short—a hasty one-night stand.  I can’t remember now if I flung you away across the bed, ousting you for being an idiot, or if I cradled you to my chest, using your hard cover as an anchor to keep me from dissolving into a million tiny pieces.  The hour on my clock was in the single digits again, and the smallest muscles in my arms were sore from holding your heavy body at such awkward angles.  But despite how fatigued I was I couldn’t resist the allure of the rest of the trilogy.

            Your three volumes saved me.  For three glorious days I lived as you lived.  I wasn’t myself.  I was Katniss.  I was Peeta.  I was Rue.  I was Gale.  In my tears I released memories of my old life, and with each smile, I grew a little stronger.  You took me on an emotional rollercoaster as I lay with three new books in three nights.  I was promiscuous for the first time in my life, and it was liberating.

You gave me reason to let flow emotions I had bound and gagged after being thrown so painfully aside.  You were the perfect confidante.  We talked about boys, and stupid decisions, and you sat quietly while I cried until my eyes blurred and burned and no more tears would come.  They were my tears, and yours.  When I had to run downstairs because I was dehydrated, you offered me a reason to smile.  It was enough to convince my roommates that I was still doing okay, when just under the surface I knew I was drowning.  

            I look back now, on that first read, and I realize how important you were in keeping me sane.  You provided me with an escape, while simultaneously helping me work through my own problems as you solved yours. 

                        I don’t know if what I have with you is love, or not.  I know that there can be companionship, comfort, and awe between your covers.  But there is also frustration, distraction, and a heartbreaking immediacy present that I don’t think I could deal with on a regular basis.  You were exactly what I needed, then, and because of that, you earned your place on my own shelves—a testament to the trials we both went through. 

                                                           

                                                            Gratefully, willfully, and ever yours,

                                                                                    ~Ashley~