I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally

"I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally"

as black as the night can get
everything is safer now
there's always a way to forget
once you learn to find a way how

He lay in a foetal position on the craggy stone floor. It was so cold it numbed his skin, skin which was already numbed on the inside. Calculatedly numb; frost bitten black like the night. A night with no stars and no dawn approaching. A perpetual arctic noir into which no aurora could penetrate. A. Perfect. Void. They would not find him here.

in the blur of serenity
where did everything get lost?
the flowers of naivete
buried in a layer of frost

He had learned, now, you see. They did not come for what They could not take. They had their favourites - the blank, staring eyes of James Potter as he lay amongst the rubble of his home; the realisation that his own little brother was gone, fled from the terror that had claimed so many of their circle that it had begun to constrict until it was suffocating, asphyxiating them all in bonds they no longer trusted and love they'd all feared was to be snatched - They had their favourites, but Sirius had his treasures. Treasures he had to systematically deconstruct for their own safety. If he pressed it all down far enough, hid it beneath the systematically torn off scabs of memories that had lacerated him on the inside, They did not know it was there. They could not pull the petals from the poppies in his little corner of Elysium. He was encasing them, one-by-one, in a protective frost of detestation, self-loathing and rage. They, at least, would make it through.

the smell of sunshine
i remember sometimes

Sometimes, when the sunlight pierced through his sliver of a cell-window, the cryogenically preserved memories he had taken such care in protecting would start to thaw. He could hear their voices, the voices of children he had once known, and they came like lullabies of death, calling Them to feast. And They always came, trying to rape and pillage the depths of his psyche just long enough for him to lose that precious ability to shut the rest away. The sunlight would reek of regret. And he would laugh. And the laughter would be enough for Them. Until next time. But for now the little boy with the spun gold hair still made daisy chains in the long grass.

thought he had it all before they called his bluff
found out that his skin just wasn't thick enough
wanted to go back to how it was before
thought he lost everything
then he lost a whole lot more

Sometimes, he would feed Them. He consciously uncurled and extended his hand, cupping in it thoughts of a perfect trio of trinities; the family - doting father, glowing mother and wide-eyed child; the lovers - the protector, the paradigm and the world of opposites in which they had dwelled, and the friends - the will, the charm and the conscience, their fourth torn asunder just a breath too late. The wishing and the want and the insatiable ache, these things he would offer, sacrifices in self-pity and swaddling clothes, as payment for the memories They did not keep. And each oblation drove the knife of shame further within, and with each twist the words formed in the air and whispered down his spine, thought he lost everything then he lost a whole lot more... But he would not give them up. The petals were still crystalline within, yet they would shatter like glass if they hit the bottom.

a fool's devotion
swallowed up in empty space
the tears of regret
frozen to the side of his face

And when They were far away, leeching on a new victim or feeding on an old friend, he would count the petals and hold the answer tightly, lest he should drown in the sea of questions that all asked the same thing. And the sea would be of his own making, falling from his face to meet the chilling air of 'forget-me-not' blues. But in time the lonely questions whose words he did not comprehend, but danced circles around his conscious in a ring-a-ring-o'-roses would tease him and string their harps with his heart strings and play deafening laments in the empty shell. And he knew. But what he knew he no longer recognised.

the smell of sunshine
i remember sometime

And, like a dawn breaking night with its awakening, the lullabies became calls. They called him home; called with the voice of a blue eyed father and a boy with a fragile rage wrapped in golden cotton wool. And somewhere he knew a natural phenomenon of more than just shape was desperate for his shielding. And the sunlight did not smell of regret. It smelled of a white cake he had taken but had never touched his lips.

i've done all i can do
could i please come with you?
sweet smell of sunshine
i remember sometimes

So he used the hollowness without as he used the hollowness within and sliced through their oppression in a different skin. And inside he knew the path never would be forgotten. An instinct, a return route to a place that had kept him safe and would never turn him away. And the road was long with no sign posts to lead him; there was no name or knowledge of the true destination: a castle near the Skye and a House with a whY? and he felt the drawing nearer and a question of the Tides... The petals started thawing and the scent of history kept the vermin in while he chased the moon and stars bounding to a home that never had walls.