"Impossible Belief"

Impossible Belief by Michael Toy

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

From "Through the Looking Glass", by Lewis Carroll

Once upon your own time there was

Believing in singing elephants and flying furniture.

It was something to be cultivated and cherished

Then you pass through the magical barrier into adulthood

And you get all the secret knowledge and the special handshake

On that day, you no longer believe impossible things

The elephants become silent

The furniture is for sitting on

The ability to see fairies in the woods

Or to fly with power granted by a blanket tied around your neck

Doesn't really come up in midterms,

Or have a section in the standard format resume

One day the wardrobe just has coats in it

Which doesn't mean we don't have dreams

We have many many dreams,

But they are made out of the stuff around us

Dreams of love, or wealth, or even selfless sacrifice

All concerning actual molecules

What if we are the same people

When we are six, and when we are thirty six?

I mean, what if none of that mystical

"You are an adult everything is different" stuff

Actually happened, even though it was supposed to?

What if the ability to believe the impossible

Actually never went away either?

For example, we did a pretty good job

When we tried out the idea

That we could stop believing like children

By just deciding to do it

After having wounded and been wounded

Many many times

Any kind of belief in love

Seems as crazy as belief in leprechauns

Yet i still believe

Maybe we can't help but believe impossible things

And just need to tell better stories

So we can believe a better impossible

Than "grownups don't do that anymore"

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