I Survived

I just watched all eight Harry Potter films in a day and I'm feeling nostalgic and all the deaths are welling up in my heart again. So I thought I would express my feelings from the viewpoint of Harry after the death of Dumbledore. Because something occured to me, which I hadn't thought much about before that Dumbledore's death hurt me so much because he was just there. Someone so old, who has seen so much of the world, who has experienced things that happened a century before Harry was born, becomes a constant. And for me, and Harry, someone so young, to survive when that constant has gone seems bizarre to me. The same way that the attack on Hogwart's is a violation of innocence, somewhere that is always supposed to be safe is safe no longer, someone who is always supposed to be there is there no longer and it's weird and terrible and eventually accepted as obvious. Of course the young outlive the old, that's how things work. But it also seems a little strange at first and I tried to express all this in a poem. I hope you enjoy.

I Survived

Today I grieve an old friend

He was wise and comforting and he fell from a tower and died

But I survived.

I don’t understand.

He was a constant in my life.

He exists, always and absolute.

I thought my life would pass in a blink of an eye and he’d still be there

But now he is not, and I, so young, go on without him.

For I survived.

I feel violated.

This is wrong.

This isn’t meant to be.

He’s lived and laughed and loved and now

The light reflects from empty eyes, and a withered hand and spread-eagled limbs

Picked out from the shadows.

And I survived.

Mourning is an expression of betrayal.

I felt safe, and at home and I cradled him in my heart.

But then death reached in and snatched him away with fumbling fingers.

Not caring that my heart was bruised and my home was gone and I do not feel safe anymore.

And I don’t know why

Someone so small, when he towered so tall

Survived.

He was kind.

And I learnt he was foolish and selfish and sorry

And it made me distraught but also a little better

To know that he was more like me.

And I miss him.

But he accepted his fate and left on his own terms and greeted death like an old friend.

To go on, to him, is a great adventure.

And how happy he would be, how glad he is to know, despite how sad that he had to go

That I survived.