I only date magicians. They amaze, they delight, they mystify. Their illusions will boggle the mind. They'll turn the world upside down and make you wonder if the reality you once knew ever truly existed. You will question your sanity. With silver tongues woven with magic, their words trim the streets in gold, cast rose colored hues, and hang the moon just for you. The sun shines brighter, the stars twinkle harder, there is never a cloudy day … at first.

 

With just a whisper in my ear, or sometimes only a look, he has the power to hypnotize. His trance compels my assistance, the assistant, the helper of the show. I beg you to “Sit, sit, gather 'round. Watch the show before the storms roll in.” For his first trick, he will turn my stomach to butterflies. Iridescent fluttering wings glinting blue to yellow, red to violet, green … to black. Tiny legs wriggle up my throat, bodies catching in my larynx, silencing my voice, then leaving my mouth as words: "I love you.” “I can’t live without you.” “Please don’t go.”

 

A cunning smile traces his lips as he prepares for his next contrivance. All at once, he makes the world disappear. Everything ceases to exist. The moon falls away. The waves stop crashing. The birds go silent. The whole world tumbles into blackness and we are left alone. He wraps us in 1,000 thread count sheets stitched from lofty promises. “I will never leave.” “I will love you forever.” “You don’t have to fear.”

 

These words are magic too because as soon as I believe them, they turn his face to stone. I no longer see the man I love. In his place stands a cold, callous creature. The look in his eyes tells me he will devour me. The world comes flooding back, and I no longer matter. But his spell over me holds me in place. I cannot run. I don't want to. And suddenly the butterflies that once danced inside of me metamorphose into snakes that writhe in my belly.

 

Then he begins to cut me to pieces. Piece by piece, bit by bit, I begin to disappear. He has the power to put me back together again, but he never will. He tears my heart to shreds of confetti and shoots it from a canon, scattering it among the audience. What a marvelous show. His biggest illusion is making it appear that my heart was the rotten one. He saved everyone from me. But his real magic trick is making me believe that I never existed in the first place.

 

As I begin to fade away, he hypnotizes another lost soul, pulling her from the audience. His trick so skillful, that even while she watched him destroy me, she believed every word he uttered. He will never leave her. He will love her forever. She has nothing to fear. And as the last of me melts away, the crowd files out to attend the next great act, for I am only one stop in his confetti heart tour.

 

But I know magic too. Only this magic is just for me, for real magic is done in secret. I don’t play to a crowd. I don't need an assistant. Long after the last bystander has gone, I collect the confetti pieces of my heart. I conjure them from far and wide. From the janitor's dustpan. The soles of the shoes of passersby. The traces that still linger on his hands. He cannot have me. This magic is no parlor trick, no trick of the eye. With time I become whole again, and stronger than I ever was, still capable of love…

 

For I am the true magician.