Now I'm the fool up on stage at the magic show

Time is literally flying by. Each day, I realize that I've given a day of my life to the world and its people. Whether trivial or important, my agreeing to live is the bargain I made. "Give me magic", I plead. And some days, I wish that Houdini had a heart, or that he'd tell me "it's all a trick". But instead, I allow myself to be dazzled. Because I want to believe in the magic. I want to believe in incredible possibilities.

I feel at odds with realism and magic. One will lead me down the smart, safe path in which there are mortgages and kids and a man to keep me safe. And at the end of that path, there will be a bed of death in which I'll lay my secrets down to rest. I'll have made love and made life routine and safe, and there will be no magic; just the elements exposed.

Or, I can choose magic. I can choose to live in the moments, and feel every emotion x5. I can feel pain and pleasure, fear and hope. I can do what I feel whenever I feel it and let life take me to the ends of the earth where I'll have shaken hands with bums, wiped tears from children's eyes, made love until the sunrise, cried in agony, traveled the world, made friends and promises, and lost loves. I can wear feathers in my hair to make me like the birds: free. Colorful. Beautiful.

I know deep in my skin that I must be both. The head and heart must act together. But when they are at such odds, how can they coexist? How can I teach logic and emotion to love one another, to reason when emotion in its very nature opposes reason? How can I have magic and realism? Magic is not real. It is the technicolor version of the life I want. It is who I am when the sun rises. But when the sun sets, a fire burns in me that despises the real, but must embrace it tearfully in the dark. I DO want a family, and a love, and a place to rest. I just don't want it to be at the cost of freedom. I don't want it to quell the fire. I don't want the colors to fade, or for the magic to end. Don't show me the man behind the curtain, the secret to the trick. Just dazzle me. Let me believe it. Let me believe you, Houdini. And let me love you.