This One Goes Out to All My Harry Potter Fans

Tonight, we say goodbye to our childhoods, some of the best friends we’ve ever had, characters that were more real than fictional, the best teachers in the world, role models and for some of us, the one thing that could always bring us happiness.At some point, it was no longer a story. Somewhere among the four thousand plus words and seven books, it all became real. Harry Potter has given me everything. For a girl who lives through the lives of fictional characters and wants nothing more but to live anything but normaly, finding that scrawny boy with the lightning scar was life changing.

We have learned to be brave, intelligent, hard-working, ambitious. We have realized that you can never judge a book by its bespectacled, mysterious, small, bushy-haired, carefree cover. Forgiveness is vital, that we shouldn’t dwell on dreams and forget to live, and that we are always stronger together than apart. We know that it’s levio-SUH, not levio-SAH, that even the smallest person can be a hero, and that our expectations for schools are now impossibly high. Red, blue, green and yellow aren’t just colors and to always keep a bezoar in our pockets, just in case. We know to never pity the dead, to sacrifice ourselves before others, to never doubt the power of a library and to have faith. Above all, that the most important thing we have in this world is love. Because our love will keep this story alive. It doesn’t all end here, because we won’t let it. We aren’t merely a fandom. We’re a group of people who have been touched by the greatest story ever told, and therein our hope lies.

In the words of the incomparable JK Rowling, the woman who has changed our lives forever, “The stories we love best do live in us forever, so whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.”

Thank you, Harry. For everything

Calf Pasture

I am eight, and my family

Is on the pier at
The beach. I see the swells

Of Long Island Sound, the

Seagulls emerging from air

And land and sea in a raucous

Chorus. I smell the air wafting

From the cold seawater, and the

Distinctive must of the pier’s old

Weatherbeaten wood. My dad is

Pointing out the islands, and

Grandma is correcting him with

Kind amusement and telling us

Of her own adventures at

Different beaches, in different

Times. And her white glasses

Mimic her white hair as she

Laughs, her purple-weined hand

Clutching a cane, and I

Smile now, in the remembering,

Even though she won’t swim

With us ever again.

Regarding Your Jeans

I tried to stop myself, I really did try

but the water was so inviting

and the air was so humid

and I knew they were your jeans

that you had bought just

two weeks ago from our

favorite store

and I think most of the

saltwater smell will come out

in the wash. I’m sorry.

Next time

you should jump in with me.

Tuesday

Tuesday evening, around 5:45 pm:

I’m screwing up.

No, really; you don’t understand how bad this is.

My brain is about to implode, collapse in on itself like

One of those fancy chocolates from a box someone gave you on a holiday--

That one chocolate that you expect to have a hard center

But instead smashes under slight pressure,

Saccharine filling oozing out in pain and defeat,

The fragile shell surrounding my volatile psyche breaking apart

Into splinters of cocoa butter and shriveled efforts curling up into the fetal position.

I’m waiting for this to be over.

My voice teacher told me the other day,

“Keep the energy spinning, let it vibrate.”

Well, my energy right now is spinning

Like the engine of my mother’s car,

Eating itself to death because of a cap left carelessly unscrewed--

My energy is dying, along with most of my desire to do anything but what is required from me

But I can’t even do That much,

So all my self-sabotaging thoughts converge on me,

Circling me like we’re about to start some cheesy tango

In an overdramatic, nationally televised dance competition

And they intend to dance me till these fingers hurt,

Till the pressure building up in my temples explodes and my

Thoughts and fears drip down all over long black stage curtains and fellow musicians,

The ones who know what they’re doing,

The ones who have no reason to feel scrutinized or embarrassed or ashamed.

I want to reach higher levels of musical ability, but how can I do that when

Exhaustion and frustration butter the rungs of the ladder going up to the little control panel where I turn on the “mental processing” switch?

My fingers and my brain have ceased communications,

Old friends who suddenly stop talking over some trivial disagreement

And cannot seem to resolve their tiff until years later when it’s too late to matter anymore.

I can no longer sing through my fingers;

They cannot speak intelligently, with all their information locked away

In a coat closet corner of my brain.

They do not traverse the black hills and ivory valleys like the frequent fliers they are;

These travellers somehow develop vertigo,

And I have little to no control over where they decide to wander off to in their

Drunken, unthinking stupor.

The mental haze settles in the back of my eyes,

Rendering them next to useless in trying to read or fake the next tricky chord changes.

What is wrong with me? Why didn’t I do this

Yesterday, last weekend, ages ago?

I’m a disappointment to myself,

To the people around me who thought we would sound better but

Aren’t sure why we don’t.

My prior arrogance embarrasses me, makes me regretful.

I just need to get through this moment, and the next two hours of moments like this one.

Maybe just once,

I’ll play something decently enough

So I don’t stay completely grim for the whole rehearsal.

But then I just have to rely on muscle memory and luck.

I just need to pull myself through the swamp reeds

To the promised land of water and shelter on the other side of the river.

Falling Off the Horse/Not what I wanted to Say

You question me, and all of a sudden

Without my consent

Without my desire my voice

Slips out of my control

And the words I’m shouting

In my head--

Strong words, confident words--

Are trapped behind my voicebox like...

Like fumbling actors looking in vain

For their lines, like...

Like tall men awkwardly trying to

Tip-toe through a labyrinth

Full of broken glass; all of them

Hesitant, no matter how much

They wish to save

The play or run

Through the maze with

Heads held high and proud

And so even though I struggle and

Fight to keep the frightened horses

In check, the reins

Slip, the rider cries out and falls, and I,

Left on the ground far from my

Destination and without a horse, am

Left with no control

No control! None at all!

And that frustration alone,

More than anything else,

Forces the words stumblingly,

Haltingly out from where they are

Clenched between my teeth

In an ugly drip-drip of words

Slowly calcifying in brittle stalactite spears,

Easily crushed in the careless vibrations of your

Voice, telling me louder, louder! I can’t hear you!

Crushed to the marrow-yellow dust of my weak words

And even more mortifying I can hear the

Agonizing onerous pace of my

Struggling speech, dragged out to tortuously

Slow proportions-- god, a child of two could

Express herself better than I at

This moment-- that makes you relent,

Because you think

I’m going to cry.

Thank You For All You've Been

I guess i never fully appreciated
The person that you were
I was to caught up
In a silly love triangle
Between
You
Me
And my heart
My stupid heart
That made me fall
So madly in love with you
Even though
Deep down
I knew it couldn't last forever
But now that your gone
I realized how lucky i was
To have been able
To call you mine
And I want to thank you
For the special memories
That might cause me
Heartache for a while
But will end up
Meaning a lot to me
In the future

Prices Payed

Now that you are gone
There is nothing more
For me to live for
You were everything to me
You weren't just a friend
You were something more
Someone I truly loved
And now your gone
Just like that
And the memories
I have of you
Haunt me like a waking dream
Silence suffocates me
As I lie away at night
Waiting for the tears
That won't come
I let you into my heart
To freely
And now I play the price
For loving you to much