I'm a black magic girlie. . .

Ok. Not really. Rewind to age 12. I had the major hots for this dude named Kyle. He was a light-skinned, braces-wearing teacher's pet. He had a head of thick, black curly hair, the kind I wanted to get my fingers stuck in. I was awkward at 12 (hell, I'm still awkward...who'm I kidding). Kyle's attention was on the fly girls in our class: the girls with the freshest permed do's, the gold hoop earrings and the latest Reeboks (pretty much whatever Salt 'n' Pepa wore). I was too poor to compete with the likes of them, so I maintained my wallflower status and fawned over the boy from afar. And then one day I saw "Teen Witch", or one of those crazy ass movies and thought...maybe I don't have to be a wallflower. Maybe I can make him love me. So I started borrowing books from the library and boning up on my chanting skills and utilizing my Ken and Barbie dolls for obscure rituals. My mom never noticed, she was very preoccupied at that point. Kyle never fell in love with me. He just didn't. All my chanting and rituals did nothing to draw him to me.

But then a strange thing happened: The week before we were supposed to graduate to high school (7th grade), I stopped liking him. It was like a switch was flipped off and all feelings ceased. Personally, I think it had something to do with the fact that I saw him wearing flip-flops and white socks one afternoon. I was never a fan of the look on guys....or gals for that matter.

I don't know why but I mentioned what I had done to my dad. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in that disappointed-fatherly way. He's a Jehovah's Witness but for some reason that didn't occur to me at the time.

"Don't mess with things you don't understand! All this witchcraft crap has to stop. Don't you realize you're playing with the devil? Forces you can't possibly comprehend? Just stop now before you go to far."

By now I was over Mr. Kyle, so it didn't pain me too much to return the books to the library and never glance back. Although, I was interested in finding out how to turn my worst enemy, Camayer, into a toad. And I thought it would've been mundo cool to find out who I was going to marry, even if it meant having my pillow smell like raw onions for a week. I was an obedient child, and I left magic alone.....for a long time.

At age 18, I was at it again. This time, I had all kinds of advice and guidance on how to do it right. There was a guy that I liked. He liked me at first, and then he didn't. So my "spiritual leader" offered me a hand and helped me rope the bastard back in. I burned candles in his name and uttered Latin words into the flame and thought about him in clear focus. Within a week, he was calling and he didn't know why. He was missing me but he couldn't bring himself to reveal it...instead he rode past my house at odd hours of the night.

This is the point where I started seeing *things*. Creepy shit. Demons and scary ass looking eyes. I mean, I felt like I was losing my mind! It was very frightening and quickly, I stashed away my candles and fan fare and tried my best to forget those Latin words. The calls stopped, I didn't see his car on my street anymore and just like that the link or whatever it was had been murdered. He was through with me. But after all the shit I had witnessed, I was perfectly fine with the whole thing!

NOW, my little sis is interested in stomping through the same unusual path. Hisgirlmonday the adult can literally look at Hisgirlmonday the child and speak to her...convince her not to screw up her life with this crap. Of course, my sister is not me. By no means are we the same person, but her reasons echo in me as things I would've said to myself as I blew baby powder across my naked Ken and Barbie doll, chanting 'Abracadabra'.

Another reason I stopped screwing with the love hocus pocus is because I felt terrible when my ex would call and not know why. I had manipulated him via some unusual love saint. I had tried to play God and force him to want me, forced my image into his mind. These are things I could not live with. I didn't want to wonder if he truly loved me, or if the magic would wear off and leave me twice heartbroken from the same person.

I understand her frustration. I can remember being that girl that no one wanted to hold hands with on the playground or give a carnation to on Valentine's Day when I was her age. But now, just a few years from my last lapse into the supernatural world, I realize that magic is a wonderful thing when you can't figure out how to make something work. When you feel like you've been beaten into a corner and pressed under the heel of circumstances, magic is a weapon. Only the true weapons are confidence, self-esteem and determination. Finding that in myself turned out to more magical than those Latin words whispered into flickering flames... and much healthier for my mentality.