The Magic I Once Possessed

I’d ask you,  but some part of me thinks you wouldn’t understand. Or worse, I’d run the risk of never hearing your voice again.

And so… I’m a coward like that. I’ve never been one to overcome inertia, whether in life or more, so I guess it shouldn’t be any surprise that I haven’t asked you something I’ve often wondering myself.

Instead I sit silent, responding, and going with the natural flow I’ve come to know so well. And leave all my questions unanswered.

But maybe that is the way it is to be. Some questions are not supposed to be answered right?

No, I don’t believe that. I think, at the very least, all questions should be sought after, even if they can’t be answered. For the journey to the answer is far more crucial than any question asked in the first place.

So maybe I’m the fool for not following through with the quest(ion)?

It’s not the first time I have been a fool, and I doubt it will be the last. However, I don’t think this question is the one I’m meant to seek an answer for. If anything it’s a question you will have to ask yourself first, before someone else brings it up. And I’d rather not rob you of that option if you haven’t done it already.

Still, it has plagued my mind to the same degree that our untold and unknown story continues to do.

I’ve stopped mourning a future that will never exist, but in its place as appeared futures that I also want to exist and I know will never pass.

And that is okay. Because the pain of not seeing all those infinitely possible futures snuffed out, is not as great as the love of how many more possible futures I may see yet.

You won’t be the last person I’ll want to answer that question I refuse to ask. I know that much. But maybe one day, if you continue to grace me with your thoughts, you’ll answer it without a word from me.

For now, I think you must learn the answer to that question on your own. And you’ll have to do it without knowing the question.

But that’s okay too. Because so many people search for the answer to life’s greatest questions, without even knowing what questions they are trying to answer.

Then again, maybe you already have the answer. In which case, I’m just hiding behind my cowardice so that I won’t have to know it.

It makes sense. I am just a coward, a cowardly imp disguised as some ridiculous magician. But you, like many before you, could see through that illusion eventually. And instead you come to find that my magic is draining, and maybe once I had been what my illusion cast me as, but now all I am is a shadow.

A shadow with no words to ask what should be asked, and no fancy lines to say when they should have been said.

I should have known the illusion would never hold. They never do. For my illusions are case differently than other magicians. Others use lies to cover up their truth, but me… I use truth to cover up the truth.

And far too often, when the illusion is wiped away, the truth underneath frightens those it had enthralled.

Meanwhile, in my cowardice, I back away and let the thoughts you think be your own. For whenever I cling to you and try so hard to keep the illusion in tact… it only results in your complete abandonment, like so many before you.

I won’t tell you not to worry, because I know it is pointless and too controlling a phrase. Instead I say explore. You experienced my magic, and for a while you reveled in it. But eventually, like most, the magic consumed you and suffocated, until all you could breathe and think was about it and you had to rip yourself away from it or risk losing yourself forever to it.

And that is why I won’t risk my question. The very ramifications of asking it could result in you being consumed or pulling away at first whiff of it. Because the answer to it would put you back under my truth-spun illusions.

And we both know that is the last thing either of us wants.

So I’m done saying sorry, I’m done fretting over what went wrong, and I’m done with my magic. It does not define me, even though for so long I thought it did.

But I do not cast aside my magic in pain, or in hope that you might fall back to me if it would not suffocate you any longer. In fact, I do not even cast it aside.

For you see, instead of asking for something like an answer from you, I would rather give you something that I think you desperately need and not necessarily want.

No, it is not my heart. That you have already been given.

Instead it is my magic, my illusions, all the energy that I’ve kept together for so long while I tried to figure out who and what I was. It was a blanket for me, while I solved what lied beneath it.

I do not give it to you because it is something you want, for I think you instead despise it for suffocating you.

I do it, because the answer to the question, no matter what answer, will require something to keep you safe while you search for it. My magic is not much, but if anything, I know it will help you when you need it most, and not when you want it to. It won’t wrap around you and suffocate you, instead it will appear and disappear at a moment’s length like a wind meant to guide and guard you.

It’s all I had for so long, but thanks to you, it is not needed any longer. It helped me become many people in my life, for the sake of other’s needs. But because of you, I’ve found who I am, and no longer need it.

But I can’t cast it off, because it is still part of me. For learning who I am, I discover I am just as much the illusion and magic, as I am myself. So I don’t cast it off, I simply cast it away… to you.

It’s all I can give, and I know you would rather just hand it right back to me in the same way you wish you could do with my heart. But this is a different kind of gift than one given at holiday. It’s the kind of gift that will always stick with you, and never leave. On the same level of knowledge, wisdom, and friendship.

My magic is love. And love will always stay with you once it has been given, or else it was never love to begin with.

And with that gift, I request only one thing: Use it. Use it as your own, and maybe one day you’ll find your own hidden within you.