Dandelion

I walk down the street as the sun slowly burns my skin wondering how my life ended up like this. Each step I take is another thought, another reminder of what once was. I look at the ground and I see a dandelion among the lush green grass. Memories flash through my mind, stories of wishes, dreams, and happy endings. The stories told to children that help them understand things in life and that give them the hope that every good person can have their happy ending. I pick the flower in hopes of making my own wish come true. I know that I have tried this so many times before and I know that this seems so childish, but maybe this time my wish can finally come true. A dandelion has become the last glimer of hope that my wish can come true.

Holding the slim stem between my fingers and closing my eyes I am transported to another time, another place. Once again I am six years old, once again I am making a desperate wish on a star, a desperate wish that I know deep down can never truly be fulfilled by a simple weed, a desperate wish that I would gladly give anything to have come true. I shake my head and try to lose the image, but it is replaced by another. I see the image of myself at fifteen, once again wishing for the impossible. Wishing, hoping, praying for that one last miricale even if deep down I know that there is no hope.

I open my eyes and a single tear runs down my cheek as I look at the fluffy cloud of seeds that contradict my own mood. I close my eyes once again and wish with all my might as I blow the seeds from the stem and send them off to fend for themselves, feeling slightly better that the seeds are now just as lonely and voulnerable as I have been for so long.

I hope and wish with all my heart, but the seeds do not go off to help my wish come true, they do not float away gently as a reminder of my hopes and dreams, they slowly turn to smoke as I blow out the flame that is the dandelion. They turn to smoke as my wish burns in front of my eyes never to be fulfilled.

Just as the first star is truly dead, just as a wishbone is merely another piece of a bird's skeleton, just as genies have limitations, my one true wish goes up in smoke as I sit there sobbing silently. I now simply wish for the dandelion to return, for it to once again be a slight glimmer of hope that a wish might one day come true. I now simply wish to once again be the six-year-old that believes in magic and fairytales instead of the adult I am now that watches her wish turn to ash as she realizes that deep down, she always knew that her wish could never come true.