I am what I believe.

I believe in eating oatmeal out of a mug,

the breathless moment before raindrops fall,

the song that makes you laugh every time you hear it,

the technique of ignoring people you don’t want to talk to by reading ostentatiously,

the subtle art of misspelling the word “the” and not realizing it until

you’ve already turned the essay in,

in dancing because you can, not because you want to.

In staying up too late because sometimes books aren’t there in the morning,

and in waking up early just to stare at the ceiling and dream on its blank canvas.

I believe in tears.

I believe in lies that slip from a friend's lips like black snakes,

coiling on the ground, hissing silver fangs dripping with poison.

Why do they always aim for the heel?

I believe that the sky cries because its clouds are too thick with pollution,

that the moon hides its face from humanity once a month because

it’s afraid of the dark.

I believe in moths, drawn to light and doomed to die because of it;

in stories with no end and life with no beginning;

in magic and laughter and childhood sun that lasts forever but

only in that dusk between dreams and the brutal shrieks of the alarm;

and in cycles of stars that streak the sky with ribbons of light

even when the spaces between and below are dark and cold and empty.

I believe in contradictions,

in ravenous seas and the tender eye of the storm,

in twining caverns and skies unending capped by skidding cloud palaces.

I believe in humanity,

that we are a contradiction just as violent and inscrutable and beautiful

as the stars and planets caught in their never-ending dance through an endless void.

I believe in humanity,

because otherwise I will become a hermit.

And yet, I still don't believe in myself.