There comes a time in every young girl’s life when she starts to wonder why she can’t pet her imaginary unicorn.

A time when the magic that seemed so real in her mind begins to disintegrate once its hooves touch down on the dingy gravel of the real world.

The longer she lives among the humdrum humans, the more the uncertainty builds around her, piling up in blank and hollow mountains of “Seeing is Believing;” and the harder it becomes for her to catch sight of the magical friend she brought with her from the other side of the veil. 

It takes longer and longer to call it forth from its kingdom of dreams, and a sparkle fades from her eye each time it fails to come. 

She has to squint through the amorphous gray to even glimpse its luminous flickering in the Beyond. 

She has to fight through dismissive thoughts of logic and reason to remember it is out there waiting for her. 

Yet every day her determination valiantly battles that swelling doubt. 

She furrows her brow and reaches down, grasping at the empty space at her side. She Knows it is there (she can Feel it – her golden winged unicorn), but still she struggles to touch its silky mane in her fingers, struggles to stroke its satiny fur under her open palm.

Her pleading eyes lift and she searches my face, questioning the duality of her imagination: 

“Momma, I know she’s there; but when she whinnies, I know it’s me making the sound.”

Wanting validation, she waits for my response: 
a confirmation – 
that magic can be both true and imagined at the same time; 
that the force of our belief can indeed bring forth a gilded horned creature from the ether; 
that possibility is not dependent on the tangibility of what we can see; 
that everything we dream up can be brought to life if only we believe hard enough.

© Skye Nicholson 2020

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After making the decision in January 2018 to put an end to 25 years of alcohol abuse, Skye began her ongoing journey of healing and self-acceptance. Poetry was how she shook the dust out of her shadows and aired her newly open soul in the sunlight. Her first book of poetry, Unexpected Alchemy, is available on Amazon.

(This post was originally published in Illumination on Medium.com)

(Featured Image by Anja🤗#helpinghands #solidarity#stays healthy🙏 from Pixabay)