I used to think the tooth fairy was a racketeering scheme

Legends say-

In a time of myth and magic-

Once upon a time-

It's all lies. 

Your parents feed you stories,

Spoonful of sugar at a time

Of gallantry and hope

That trickle down your chin and stain the duvet 

Magic isn't real. 

The lost kids don't stumble upon a gingerbread AirBNB

The oil lamp doesn't spit dead comedians out when you shine it.

Life is full of lies and dreams and heartache

The little while you spend on this rock hurtling through infinity Is minute, 

even in our reckoning

Your parents fear the dark as anathema

The demiurge risen to condemnl

And holy week shelters their pauses in the cycle

You forget the values that were bidden unto you

The crack of television commercials

And the saccharine nature of medications

But we hope.

Hope for the taste of water on a hot day

And the cool whisper of rain

Unspooled like curtains across the slumbering countryside

And far off the promise of green land

And trees that broach no argument 

When an axe leers hungrily at their bark

We hope to dispel the nightmares of our pasts

That the tuppence spent on homeless veterans

Outweigh the slaughter of their mortal foes

And that the bite of steel on rubber 

As we race down black snakeskin at a million miles an hour

Is sanctified and sanctioned 

The Apollo landing left a flag on its course. 

Staked land colonized for the people of the world

And one boy with a Lazer pointer can prove it's validity. 

So maybe magic is real

In the same sense that Perseus was real

That we breathe reality into the fabrics of our stories

And weave the characters into stardust

That glitters on the checkered annals of history.

Maybe there isn't a gingerbread house for everyone.

And the veterans go hungry on the streets. 

The pattern of rain washing away the sins of a life are just droplets on a roof. 

Maybe Grimm wasn't all lies.

Maybe Aesop had a point.

Confucius might actually have said.

Maybe your parents taught you to believe

Not just because it hurts less to be wrong

But because there is hope

That one day you will stand amidst a forest

Of shaking heads

Cataclysmic in their denial

And stand up.

Do the right thing.

Not because it's magic. 

But because magic is a byproduct of a life well lived

And a story well told.