Syke Stein lives in Edmonton, Alberta and will be graduating with her Master’s in Social Work from Dalhousie University this spring. Her academic interests include disability studies, feminism, and queer theory. She is looking forward to getting into her kayak this summer, and plans many weekends of reading and hiking before making any decisions about pursuing a PhD.

I am a pressed fairy.
Wings stuck and spirit flattened,
colours fading and unique dance of whimsy halted,
I fear I have withered.

Slapped shut,
caught among pages of positivist text,
black white empirical lines
of academic proof,
I have become a fairy specimen.

In peer-reviewed journal articles,
there is no room for fantasy or imagination.
Yet here I am.
Stuck.
Where creativity desiccates
into data and guidelines,
I am reduced down
to the hard bones of evidence.

Among these scientific tomes,
between these grave pages,
there is no room
for a fairy with bones.

And yet,
it is impossible to prove
I am a fairy.