I don’t believe in school but
I believe in education. I don’t believe in the
click clack of the ever constant clock or
the impatient taps of the foot,
monotonous drone and the minutes
that seem like hours.
I believe in learning weird things
that I’ll never use and esoteric
words I’ll never feel the meaning of
until one day I get out into the world
and feel them myself.
I don’t believe in the “real world,”
I don’t believe that classrooms are a fake world
and somehow when I leave I’ll somehow
be real.
I believe that every day when we think
see touch taste learn run and we can
maybe just live
that’s as real as it gets
and every day I’m alive
is quite real. Why wouldn’t it be?
I believe in boundaries, but not limitations,
I believe in taking flight, but not flying away.
I believe in flying – that’s what all the
teachers say we’ll do, we’ll fly away,
into horizons they can’t see yet and
maybe we can’t either.
But I don’t want to fly, I’m a sissy,
who’s afraid of heights and when
all the kids wanted to fly
I wanted an invisibility cloak.
Because I believe in hiding away sometimes,
alone, when thoughts can take substance
and feel real in my head.
I believe the time when I can mold words
and fix them into something
tangible, and maybe I can make
these abstract fancies into something real.
Into something I can touch, like
grease stains on one dollar pizza from New York
or the cold graze of a piano
I haven’t nudged in years.
Because as much as we all like to believe
in utopian concepts like imagination
and wonder and love and hope and joy
all we ever really want
is something real.
I believe in white lies with meaning,
meaning with truth but if a lie is necessary, I’ll take it.
I don’t believe in God but I believe in Sunday mornings
when I smell the workings of lunch
tendrils of soup flavoring and fresh sourdough bread
(Costco makes the best, take it from me)
because I never wake early enough
to feel breakfast.
I believe in soft music on weekday evenings
when piles of homework seem to snarl at me
and grab my middle and shake me up.
I don’t believe in my mother’s lecturing voice
but I believe when she lets loose
and drinks a cup of tea and listens
to Nightly News, laughing at all the stupid people
in the world
as if she was an entity above it all.
I believe in exploration and mindless searching,
because maybe if we stopped trying
so hard to find meaning
we’ll find it before
we can even name it
categorize it
and shove it away in rusting filing cabinets.
I believe in things
classrooms and teachers can’t teach you
like thoughts and ideas you think are useless
but make up the ringlets of the face
you never show anyone
and maybe you never will
but ideas like those
are what keeps you whole
and bigger than you could possibly imagine.