Horses by Arkaye Kierulf

Some things I believe in: Past lives. Parallel universes. That I am meant to meet and know and love certain people at certain times and hours in my life. Kindness. That one can both be happy and sad at the same time. That one can both be brave and afraid at the same time. That quantity is not equal to quality. Hard work. Possibilities. Mistakes. That creativity takes courage (Matisse). That dreams are revolutions (Shawn Youngblood). That if you can take the worst, you must take the risk.

Horses
Arkaye Kierulf

I believe in trees.
I believe in birds that live in trees.
I believe that behind every one bird is a sky forever expanding.
I believe all windows look out to the same sky.
I believe in keeping secrets.
I believe there is sincerity in lies.
I believe when the lights go off the furniture keep to their places.
I believe in faith.
I believe that if you believe hard enough you will soon enough be saved.
I believe in walls. That we need them.
I believe in open spaces, that we need them more.
I believe once in a while we crave loneliness.
I believe we need sadness.
I believe in the soft cave of the mouth, in what it has to say, savage and comforting.
I believe in roads and streets, that they lead to ruins.
I believe violence is a plea for mercy.
I believe in the heart’s destructive implosions.
I believe behind every painting or picture is a white canvass, complete in itself.
I believe philosophy is difficult and silly; I prefer instead small delicate things like a knife.
I believe Plato’s forms do not exist.
I believe behind every space is just another space, and behind that just more space, and so on.
I believe in clouds.
I believe in the divinity of clouds.
I believe mathematics is useless and noble.
I believe in numbers.
I believe that behind all distance is an admission of connectedness, that all space admits of openings.
I believe that everything is open.
I believe inside every mind is an open gun waiting to go off.
I believe the mind is a gun.
I believe behind every face is another face is another face.
I believe some of us would like to be saints but cannot.
I believe some women are virgins.
I believe some women would like to be virgins.
I believe in the inviolable and the insane.
I believe in the quiet dignity of horses.
I believe in the benefits of buying a house.
I believe every house should be surrounded by trees.
I believe in this century, that it is not yet over, that we are on the verge of yet another discovery.
I believe our many voices thin out into only one voice.
I believe in the end, but only if it fuels the past to continue expanding.
I believe in the layering of clothes, one on top of another, in the Victorian style.
I believe in skirts and lingerie and long black hair and virtue.
I believe in sin.
I believe in the woman under the man and vice versa.
I believe in the invisible hand, in the wind that lifts the bird and elevates the sky.
I believe in love without proof.
I believe in landscapes.
I believe that behind all love is all love itself, pure and soft and intense.
I believe in things so huge we forget what they’re about and why.
I believe in things so small that it’s taken us all these years to realize we’ve seen nothing.