I am Sirius Black

I am Sirius Black

"I'm nobody who are you

Are you nobody too?

Then there's a pair of us

Don't tell

They'd banish us you know"

Emily Dickinson

I could laugh at this poem, if I had the strength. And if I had the heart. Because this is so far from me, that the person in the poem would be my exact opposite. I'm most certainly not nobody. But I'm somebody for all the wrong reasons. As I sit and rot here in Azkaban I wonder how the world could have treated me so unfairly. I didn't do anything to be treated this cruelly by fate. The dementors pass by, gliding along, and I think a thought, because that's what I do to stay sane in this world of insanity. I wonder if dementors have feet. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to try and stay alive in this place. Is it worth it, I think to myself, to stay alive and remember the painful memories? I wonder where I get the courage to think of the painful blows of unhappiness that I have been dealt, day after day? The death of my best friend and his wife. The treachery of the traitor, who was once my friend. And I knew, even if I couldn't see, that the only friend I have left hates me now. He is a friend no longer. Who doesn't hate me I think to myself. Am I not a traitor? No, I am not. And I think again, where does the courage to keep on living come from? But then I turn on myself. I am a coward I think savagely I suggested him to be the secret keeper because I was scared to do it myself! I laughed when he killed innocent people and left me to take the blame! I am a coward I repeat and nothing more. But in my heart I know that nothing could have saved them from their destiny. I know that it is not my fault, but I need someone to blame, and I cannot bear to blame anyone but myself. As I think of my dead friend and his wife, so young and happy, a single tear courses down my cheek. It is a glimmer of emotion in this emotionless place, like a ray of sunshine creeping through a chink in the wall into a dark room. I am Sirius Black, and I am innocent.