I Was Here

I Was Here

(A Potterverse)

Amidst the Uncertainty

Year 1997: Voldemort's Disappearance

under the Midnight Sky

over the Bristly Hard Cold Ground

embraced by strange wintry Wind from origin gone

laced among the Stars long have missed

bound by the Eye of the Seams

I WAS HERE I WAS HERE

How you wished thinking were addicting. How you wished it were friendly and warm. How you wished it were enough to live. But when you have too much to think about, the more you run away from it. You feared that it would eat you whole, and there would be nothing left of you...knowing how tiny had you become, if it captured you, you knew you would merely whirl away as a void of thoughts--nobody sees, nobody hears. Power is passion, and when hungered it is treacherous, stealthy, vindictive. And these were powerful thoughts...you knew it. So you went hiding, trying to be away from it, cuddling in darkness and cold...but still you felt its power...so strong, predatory, and vengeful...the thinnest of its fringes stealthily crawling under your skin, sipping away your dwindling spirit, hollowing your bones, blurring your mind...so gradually...so painfully... And you knew someday it would find you when you had nothing left of yourself, when your delicate covers of illusion had withered into total lifelessness.

Still and void as a dead, you finally collapsed at the deepest of this precipice you were wallowed in. You were insensate to remote and pitiless powerful thoughts that reigned your every fiber and carried you away...

Huddled between reality and illusion...you wished you weren't alive. But you feared the calls of death. Death. There was too much Darkness in it, its engorging enigma feeding on your ignorance...on your purest of fear and foreboding. This was unknown, and you knew nothing but your own weakness...and this Darkness' certain immensity...supreme strength...and your inevitable defeat and demise into its atrocious arms.

But reality was an ever stranger...no gentler. Passing phases of randomness...impersonal...just constantly dangerous. It had hurt you countless of times. It had conceived you without thinking, without Purpose. Just another minion, to be an infinitesimal speck of façade to add to its unwarranted grandiose presence. It had forgotten you even before you were born, and to death you would go without anything knowing you ever existed. This isn't just a place to know, you said. Nothing said of Truth. Nothing. And maybe there was no Truth to know. Truth is the very Illusion of reality that had coaxed and failed you.

Now you opened your eyes against another darkness, the darkness of the night. It reflected nothing of itself but its mysterious hostile blackness. You were seeing nothing. Nothing. Not even yourself. And you doubted if you ever existed at all.

But a dream had just visited and awoken you. Pushing you into the memories you had long abandoned.

I wish I were somebody else. Or never existed at all.

That very first true Smile was for somebody. Not for yourself. Not even. Just for the very first somebody who was ever kind to you. For the very first time, you were genuinely thankful. For this gigantic person. But not for yourself. You didn't know yourself. And for the first time, you realized the pure truth of not knowing yourself ever at all. But you did not think of it for a while. Escape is better when you are naïve and when the world is a greater fascination.

Now that you had just acquainted yourself of true gratitude, you knew it was nice. The very first nice thing you ever knew of. And you knew forever you would be thankful.

So you indulged with your very first friend...not an illusion, not silly childhood dreams, but something real, something you saw. Something that is very alive within your bosom. Gratitude.

And you were overwhelmed by it.

Gratitude never failed you, or so you thought. It showed you fondness, sympathy, respect and later on... friendship.

But something was nagging you...it tickled your brain, your heart so elated brimming with many new things. Ah, maybe this would not be a dream at all...you felt it coming. Yesss. With niceness and friendship. Just like magic. Ah, I will be free...

Free to love, and to be loved back. Free to see, and be seen back. Free to talk, and talked back. Free to smile, and be smiled back. Free to learn. Free to be happy.

Free to be yourself.

But you never knew who you were.

Yourself has known you, before you have known yourself.

And for the first time, you knew fear. Real fear.

Mirror of Erised. Mirror of Ebony. Reflecting nothing.

You look at yourself. And you saw images you have never known. The magical world. Your magical friends. Your magical family. The ones you thought only dreams could offer. Too many. Passing so fast, leaving you, and giving you more, before you could touch them. But dreams could not give you everything; you knew it. They were bound to leave you and perhaps remain dreams. And you were bound to never truly understand.

Then you saw, the very first two people you should have seen during the wake of your consciousness, and you would ever want to see your entire life. Just standing there...never leaving, but never real. Your parents, yes. Bubble of joy. You were happy for the smiles, but you knew that was all there to it. You were happy for the touch of your mother you saw but never felt, and you knew that was all there to it. And you grappled for their scanty artificial memory from the flat mirror and carved it in your mind. And you knew that was all there to it. Ever.

Reflection has commanded you, not you commanding it.

Too many things to see, to hear, to say, to do. You never understood anything. You looked inside. You saw nothing.

You always watched. You always ran. Always glutting all the energy of life left in you. There were too many eyes on you. Expecting, begging. But what have you got to give?

It was them who gave you something. And they expected back. But you had nothing.

Don't they get it?!

They wanted a Hero.

A hero. A hero who knew nothing of what he had done. Who understood nothing.

When you were not a hero, you were Nobody. Just another name of the past.

You were just a servant. A captive and some sort of a pawn in a war of breadth and depth you never understood. They relied in Familiarity: tried and tested. You were a hero for Familiarity's sake. Maybe it would work again. Or maybe it might fail you like the others. Maybe it would die. Just like Mom...Dad...little bothers and sisters I never had...Home...Friends...Cedric...

Maybe...

'*~~~*'

Light of Life

in the middle of Sun, Laughter, and Green

in the shadowy reminiscence of Broken Glass and Moldy Milk

the man who never Grew up

Gripped the Rusty Handle of the Cemented Seat

in the Moment

I WAS HERE I WAS HERE

You never knew Innocence. You never had a childhood. You never knew it. You merely saw. But you could never have it. You were told you had no right.

No right to be a child.

No right to smile.

No right to play.

No right to speak.

No right to be lonely.

No right to be angry.

No right to be a person. A real person.

Every word, glance and emotion thrown at you said the same thing: Just exist for shame sake.

Be eternally grateful you had luckily existed

when you should have not.

No family. No friends. Not a cent in the world.

Nothing.

They bequeathed you fabric ragged to disgust, just enough to cover your flesh. To feign warmth in extreme cold. They bequeathed you edible matter left to distaste, just enough to chew and swallow. To feign fullness in extreme emptiness. And they gave you isolation and darkness in the treacherous night.

Your existence was in the hands of guilt and aversion. You were in debt of emotions they bothered so good-naturedly to offer you--disgust and distaste.

But had you ever wished for all of this?

You were never asked. You had only voiceless lips. Because you never mattered.

You felt Pain, growing, growing until it engulfed you in the emptiness of the night. Pain. This was your only empowerment. The verification that you lived at all. This was your sanity. The only thing that could be called "Harry."

You tried to understand life. You tried to understand pain. But you never knew anything but this hollow existence that shoved you wherever at its careless whims and wantonness.

How impersonal this life is. You knew it never knew you as you never knew it.

Sometimes you just wished Death did not leave you. How you wished to be in the loving Brethren of your parents now, wherever It was. Every moment of your life, It was the longing destination.

Maybe we were inside the castles in the sky, so pure, so white...with the scent of sweet flowers and birthday cakes, cookies and my favorite...chicken! With luminous angels as friends! Maybe I could be an angel too! And play all day, eat, laugh...and be hugged with tenderness and love...Just like the one I happened to glimpse from Dudley's TV set but was instantly switched away with the flick of his frantic finger.

But you knew dreams were not real. You have seen, felt and been scarred by the ravages of the whims of life. This was never real. But you could not help but dream sometimes. You just did not know what else to do. If only Pain was enough to end this torment of a life. Dreams...what a treacherous thing. It never played fair. A fleeting comfort that led to more pain. Its false beauty was a complete contrast to the emptiness and bestiality of existence that its every broken promise left you weaker to the renewed surge of pain.

And during one of your birthdays, when you knew that that was one of the chain of your lonesome birthdays...something came by. You did not know it. But you were suddenly and truly grateful. The very first Real Gratitude you felt in life. You thought maybe it was heaven-scent...yes, Magic. Maybe it was all a dream...or maybe death had finally accepted you...too real and unreal.

It was not a dream, for nothing really changed. What you saw was all an Illusion. All came as a frenetic foreshadows. Fast and sudden everything is, you never had time to understand what to feel about them. Too surreal...

You saw respect, fondness and friendship...yes, beautiful creatures. But you never knew how to understand them. They were just there--standing, so physical, so reassuring...but deep within you they were not there...you never knew them.

You were Harry Potter here. Harry. Potter. The name is so crisp and audible. A four syllabic resonation enough to stir a crowd into a crescendo of reverberating whispers. It moved and curved every amused mouth. Not only that, there were words, insignia of some sort that only you never knew. The Boy who Lived? And your scar. Your Lightning Bolt Scar. Yes, they were eccentric, but you never knew they were so special to bring smiles and fear until then.

So you thought...yes, you would be free. The Free Harry Potter...

But all furthered as meaningless murmurs and blurs...

Until you found yourself at the very feeble mercy of a jagged edge. Bracing for life--your own and especially of all the Wizarding World.

Yes, you knew too much pain and exhaustion. But you never knew importance...never knew heroism. This was still new to you and it never failed to overwhelm you every time. All you knew was that you were too afraid to see another dead person...you were too afraid to feel another guilt. And you would never let go of the only control you had in life. For the first time you felt Purpose--to avenge the most important persons in your life, your parents. Your Hatred and Revenge was revered. And you realized they were not so bad after all. Albeit they thought this was bravery...heroism so-called.

But all this time you kept silent. Enduring pain. Clutching for your survival at the very curvy smiles of the friends you ever had.

Friends that you thought was enough to help you seize what was stolen from you--your childhood. Your freedom. Your life.

But this was another bondage in a new façade. And the pain was worse, for this was from the very persons whom you thought loved you truly. Whom you thought would hear you and understand you. But in the deepest of purest sorrow and hatred, you cried the hardest, shedding unending waterless tears for defeat, for they were of the same spirit and fiber of the persons who stole your life from you. Pain was when love didn't really understand. Love is not enough.

They were the same.

This was the same.

And you wished you were never Grateful.

And you wished you could escape thinking...and forget everything.

And you came true was Simplicity and Silence.

...

Cleanse

There were Two Sides

My Body was in one side

My Soul was in the other

I chased the Hearth of the Flame

But I was left behind in the Absence of Light

My Shadow and Soul unified

I thought I was whole

I surrendered and came back Home.

And this was life according to Harry Potter.

Harry Potter

(1981-1997)