Don't Pretend

portrait of a bad mood, for your enjoyment

Don’t Pretend

Doc, don’t pretend there’s no internet.
The Mayo Clinic has a site!
I know what happens if I go off prednisone too fast:
my cortisol production can’t catch up.

Democrats, don’t pretend democracy depends
on me sending fifteen bucks right now.
I don’t own a convenience store in a bad neighborhood
and you are not the mob.

Kitty, don’t pretend to love my face this much,
you soft statue staring straight into my eyes.
Any other human could take my place I bet,
as long as their body temperature is high.

Netflix, don’t pretend you have more movies
than 82 to watch, or that the choice is mine,
or that your “documentaries” edify
and our lives are made of endless time.

This goes for all institutions: We see you.
Don’t say you are committed or have a mission
or that we’re in your employ. We just pretend
there’s a work week, and anyway you were our idea.

The only time I’m not pretending is in a field at night
on my back, beneath an array of stars, dome of dark
pricked by several billion points of light.
But even then, maybe I’m just trying it on for size?

I pretend to think I’m small,
like an ant—ants are the go-to measure—an ant
on a 1,000-mile highway, bless its heart, a pixel of the internet,
one tiny human in a meadow somewhere in Vermont.

I am a soft statue staring, I tell you,
into the eyes of life. My auto-pilot heart
still clenching and unclenching,
the galaxy my oyster when my cortisol is right.

Pretend that if you want.
Pretend to circle back.
Pretend size doesn’t matter.
Pretend you ever lie in fields at night.

Worker, Aetna patient,
Netflix watcher tricked,
donor of 15 bucks,
98.6.

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This is Emily Writes Back, the Substack for brilliant people.