Poems for the Sad and Weary

Magic

It is evident that what magic was

To me, at sixteen, is different

From what it is now. On some days,

It makes me sad that to earn rent

Might qualify under such a category

Because the world has become harder to live,

Harder to breathe and harder to survive

With each day I keep my eyes open. To lift

Myself out of a self-created hole

Has also become something like an achievement

And for everyday I keep myself from the edge,

I pat myself on the back for avoiding a situation.

True love was magic for me. To find a person

That would stay with you for an eternity was

The best possible wish my heart could make

In light of the fairytales. It became a cause

For great disappointment when I realized

That love does not fill up a soul

Because there are many kinds of love in this world

And my focus was painfully small and unwhole.

So magic to me now is the ability to keep trying

Even though there had been pain, there had been wounds

But you never stop moving forward despite memories

And one day, you look back to see the many moons

You’ve left behind in recovery. Magic is

The sound of rain at midnight, and you know you get

A couple more hours of sleep and life

Seemed perfect at that very moment, when you forget

That there was nothing more to life than just living,

Breathing, survivng each scar you reopen

Because we are liable to do that and

That’s why there are stories written.

Magic is the feel of your fingers against a stone wall,

A wall you touched years ago and remembered,

Having the words to transport you back in time

When you knew more about life than when you slumbered.

Magic is knowing that feelings exist for a reason

And to feel an emotion so strongly is not a curse

But something you should hold keenly

In light of having to let go of people without a verse.

And magic is stepping off a boat into a land unknown,

The tears that you cry when you’re alone.

Magic is when you type words you never believed you could write again

And magic is feeling all the pain you’ve gained.

Magic is this poem, a poem I thought I had lost

When I turned away from everything I was.