At 16

May 6, 2003

The peach comforter laying on my feet
could not warm me from the freeze
that paralyzed my desire to find out
for real that this was not all in my head.
There was always a chance I made it all up.
"If you'd only believe enough
to come to me," he said,
"If only you'd believe in me like I know
you believe in so many other things.
The girl who casts spells,
the one who writes out dreams,
makes wishes on stars,
and counts the hour of birth
should be the first to come to me,
in honesty and in earnest
just to prove to me what I already believe."
In my head, my fantasies seem so real,
this everlasting need for the feeling
of being drawn away from reality,
to the honeysuckle breath of love
that has persisted through all my darkest hours.
"I am the first to believe,
but the last to confess. I am
only as much as you make me.
I am the whispered secret.
I am the hushed silence of belief.
Expand the dreams of your mind,
and hold tight when I make it
all come to life," I say.
I am answered with the saturated,
dense sensation that this is true.
There is nothing I don't feel that
hasn't been rooted in this secret belief.
I'd give the world, the stars, and the sky
for the one chance to get the proof I need.
My secret is not at all safe
whenever times like these come along.
It was so when I came of age,
and it is so, even now, when I
should know better than hold on to
the dreams I had at sixteen.