hidden magic maia poon

Inspired by Common Magic by Bronwen Wallace and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky Hidden You didn’t know you were so replaceable. Like concrete bricks being stacked once more, patterns in their edges resurfacing, your shape is somehow so easily filled. You suffer silently, while two more souls have been entwined, phantom braided bracelets encircling a stone wall. Ethereal, ephemeral. Are three letters really worlds apart?

But it’s not always like that. Sometimes, the tragic pop songs and 80’s ballads start to make sense. You begin to understand Persephone’s lament — once a wallflower, always a wallflower. An old friend, trapped in the wrong decade, wishes someone would make him a mixtape — even though tapes and recorders no longer inhabit the realms of adolescence. He creates hundreds of playlists, dedicated to autumn leaves and rainy days, yet he’s the only one who listens. And you wonder if your dreams seem philosophical, too.

Your sister envisions a world where an abundance of female protagonists speak about politics and body rights, the meaning of a multicultural society — more than just men and romantic nights. You understand where she’s coming from — you’re Asian and female too — but sometimes you just want to enjoy the stories. The word just — glass and bubbles seemed fragile, transparent at first glance, but you have since discovered the aeons of pressure they withstood to be where they are now — fueled by fires of efflorescence.

You just don’t know, and yet, you will see. You’ll savour your best friend’s voice like an apple’s myriad flesh. She will break and heal herself in tidal waves, interactions between the celestial and Earth, as you gravitate, together and away, shattered and mended, perdendosi — again and again. A word floats like a dandelion pappus: light as a feather, foreign as a mermaid’s flesh. The mailman, the banker, and the car mechanic sit and watch the world go by, as instantaneous, epistolary as the regrowth of weeds. How many of us have had the same thoughts, the same storms? Begin again, renewal — Endings are as universal as falling. x