magical knightmare

she came in with such candor.

i thought it was going to be a bonding moment.

then she opened the lid of my jewellery box

and my heart nearly stopped.

she was going to see it.

the photo i’d cut out of the paper.

the boy i thought was cute.

she picked it up and started to taunt me.

oooh who’s this.

is this your boyfriend.

do you have a crush on him.

then she laughed.

you’re never going to have someone like that

not when you look like that.

i died.

i literally died.

all those fantasies i’d had

about meeting him

hanging out

doing normal kid things together

they vanished in an instant.

this was the first time i’d noticed the opposite sex.

the first spark of interest.

and in that moment i learned it wasn’t safe.

you can’t have fantasies without being exposed.

you can’t have secrets without them being found.

you can’t want something without someone crushing it.

it’s wrong to desire what isn’t yours.

what’s out of your league.

what’s deemed impossible.

no boy will ever like you.

not looking like this.

one conversation was enough.

it shaped how i saw myself

how i saw my body

how i entered relationships.

something innocent was taken

and i learned to stop imagining anything better than what was right in front of me.

we carry moments like this for years without noticing.

until life forces us to look again.

and when we do

we get to return to what was stolen

to reclaim the magic that was there first.

to write a story that belongs to us.

not one handed down by someone else’s fear.

this is myth

the magical knightmare

where fantasy is wounded

and imagination learns how to survive.