Who knew that crayons were smarter than the rest of us?

I was a believer
Long after the other girls got interested in parties and boys

I would sit on my heels on the floor of the school library
And stare at the musty shelves of stories, searching for my next fantasy

I was a true believer
It seemed strange to me that while all of these characters, my friends,
kept finding magic in their worlds
mine was devoid and empty
I kept wondering, Why not me?

I was sure the magic was just hiding from me
Waiting for the right time to show itself
Waiting until I was ready to become the heroine
Every windy night, every walk into the woods,
I would think
This time, it will come for me
But it never did

I had a book on forest faeries and how to find them
After waiting and waiting all of those years
Clinging to my last hope, I decided I would give the magic one more chance
I went out to my back yard
To the perfect faery tree, with all the knots and holes in its trunk
And deep red berries stirring gently with the warm breeze
I stood under it, hands clasped, eyes closed
And waited one last time
Please I begged Please

And that was the day I stopped believing

From then on, I was determined to be a rationalist
An evidence-only type of girl
I switched to kneeling before the science fiction shelves
Followed the inventions of today's great tech scape
It was magic in its own sort of way

But my metaphoric heart has never quite given up on the romance of true magic
It loves it in a tragic, primal sort of way
It wants to make my life into a hero journey of fate and destiny
It wants there to be something more to this world
A something mysterious, a something beautiful
All my head and heart seem to do is contradict

A long time ago, I used to be a believer
But ever since I decided to give up on magic
It seems that magic has refused to set me free.

The lines are spray painted on the field
The track loops back in on itself

We're running for gym class

Look it's a butterfly! I say
It follows me around the circle

My friends barely glance at it
But I see them every time
The orange and black one
the small white ones that chase each other
I see them every time

I can't take my eyes away
Tracing their paths higher and higher
Until finally they wink off into the distance

I've heard that butterflies are the souls of the dead come back to play
I've heard they are a symbol of innocence or of rebirth

But to me,
all they are is free.

Right now,
it smells like old, crumbling stories
from the bookshelves out in the hall
there's a Barbie cup on the desk where I sit
cradling pens that for years have gone unnoticed and unused
I'm surrounded by photos
of young people now old and old people now dead,
and across from me is that faulty router
that brought me up here in the first place

Sometimes there is nothing to write beyond the ordinary
no beauty to behold, no story to be told
and all that is left to capture is
life as it is
before it fades a  w   a    y

Everyday on my way home from school
I slip down an untended shortcut where
By the sides of the walkway, the dandelions lie

It’s a fact that the cheeriest yellow will turn to a head of white with time
And so, each day I’m walking by

I snap a stem from it’s spot in the ground
And hold it’s soft flower to my lips
And wish for something I already have

I blow these wishes out into the world
To catch up with me years away from now
I drop the empty stem by a tree
Into a pile of other broken bodies
Each a flower’s memory

I call out to my best friend ahead of me
I run over, grab her hand and pull her along
Pull her along for all those years away from now

I'll pull her along until it’s our time to blow away too
That’s when I’ll know my wish has come true.

To wake up of own volition, surrounded in warmth
        refreshed like when the moon comes around to full shine
               a wolf howl, with two small voices warbling after
Inked veins run across spring-kissed skin
         inked as a flower, ever constant in impermanence and design
All walk lines, and unexpected find common intersection
        in chocolate and popcorn and spider-like boys
               in flags shimmering as mirages tossed to the sky                
One unseen but listening, eyes glistening with your tears
Red carpet ending finally goes to the deserved

Lessons, internalized, suddenly shine in the real world