MythThe 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.