Childhood Beliefs Poem by Jim Yerman

It's funny, when we're young, the tales our minds will weave…the different things we're sure are true…the stories we believe.

How many thoughts, though unproven, are dancing in our heads…
For instance I believed my blanket kept me protected from the monsters that lived beneath my bed.

I believed if I swallowed a watermelon seed…it would grow inside me and I'd blow up like a balloon.
I believed a toad could give me warts and that a man lived inside the moon.

I believed my wishes rode on the dandelion seeds I blew into the air.
I believed, if many of my cartoons were correct, there was quicksand everywhere.

But as we grow the things we thought we knew as children have a tendency to change
or through knowledge and experience…at least to rearrange…

That is why I still make wishes on dandelion seeds and blow them into the air…but I now know when I take a walk I won't find quicksand everywhere.

That is why I have no problem picking up toads…why I know there's no man living inside the moon…but why I still shy away from watermelon seeds…(still not quite sure about that balloon!) .

And that is why when I go to sleep I still pull the blanket up over my head…only now I know the monsters I need protected from…do not live beneath my bed.