Is there a portal to another world, buried deep in the forest?
I used to believe-no, ache-for one.
Dressed in something lovely, wandering into that dark, breathing silence,
I wished for a prince with silver eyes and a crown made of thorns.
I wished so hard, I almost believed the trees whispered his name.
But reality does not whisper.
It shouts.
It slaps.
And after ten long years, the trees only echo my own footsteps.
No portal.
No prince.
Only me.
And then, somewhere between the moss and the mourning,
I found something worse and better.
I am the portal.
I am the magic.
I create the world, though the world rarely returns the favor.
But magic is heavy.
It asks so much.
Reality is jagged, and beauty fades under fluorescent lights and unpaid bills.
The feeling I had for the forest
that trembling hope, that sacred ache
is fading like smoke in winter wind.
But not gone.
Never gone.
It lives beneath my ribs now,
A memory I will carry until the last star in me dies out.
Even if the forest forgets me
I will not forget the girl who believed.
