Let Me Pretend Poem by Samah Khan

(My trials have wrought me by iron mail
I cannot escape, struggle, though I may,
I am pulled to the ground, neck-deep in sand,
Do I have my fate in my palm? I wouldn’t know,
For I cannot see my hand.)

Let me pretend for a while that life does not exist
That you are just an illusion, and I, an imagination
Dreamt of by a sleeping giant, who lives in the lands
We read to ourselves at bedtime; and when he awakes,
We will disappear in a puff of smoke,
Never to have lived at all.

Here, in this little room of this little house,
I am big, so very big that I leave no spaces
In between; but out there,
I am small, so very minute
That even I cannot see myself.
My mirror tells a tale of distress and decrepit misuse
And then I turn it and I see what I will become,
Dark nothingness made of paper,
Torn apart by misfortunes (and the likes thereof) into
The stuff you use to feed fire.

Let me pretend for a while that I cannot think,
That all thought succeeds me in gaining its fated end-
And that I was asleep in the bosom of the apple orchard
On an especially hot summer’s day
When Trouble came, sought to woke me, failed and left without.

I find no peace in sleep, and sleep does not come easy,
And when it does come, it comes in broken granules
Of lost dreams, longing and nightmares that scream to be heard
And when I wake, and waking is not easy,
The room is cold, the cup is dry and the curtains are drawn
Against life and the offense of the sun.

Let me pretend for a while that I had never met you
And that life was relatively simpler and that
I routed good luck upon myself that dissolved all else-
So that if we ever crossed paths, on a snowed-in road, years from now
We would walk past each other, never even glancing
The other’s way.