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.