I
am Starting to Believe
By Oscar S. Cisneros
I'm starting to believe: One step at a time, each step
taken deliberately, that I have evolved into the man I
once imagined as a boy so long ago. Those years seem to
have slipped by, the daily drudgery of making me, one
stone at a time into this pock-marked reality of bold
imperfection, of fierce determined direction -- now is
the time to look back upon that time of doubt and laugh
for that moment is over and today is today is today. I
feel the click of each heel upon marbled stones and I
know that I have arrived upon this moment, shod my feat
in tended leather with the singular determined force and
vigor of my own being. And so I have started to believe.
That all those dreams I have accomplished, those fanciful
ideal thoughts I have made into my reality are but stepping
stones to the man I am today. I have started to believe
my own story, for this fiction is inked daily in my own
blood, in my own sweat, with what precious time I have.
And so I believe that this life is mine to lead and that
I will not let any one save the Lord dictate to me the
way and the manner of its enjoyment. I have started to
enjoy the simple pace of my own feet, the simple natural
pose of me. Each moment I have learned is precious, each
stage is to be enjoyed and the moment I love most is to
today, not yesterday not tomorrow but today, the day in
which I see my face crossed with laugh lines, my hair
with silver streaks. I am starting to believe in the tale
I told in own dreams. I am starting to believe in me.
