Friday, August 04, 2006

let's pretend

(for maya osman)

let's pretend it's december
_____when we were both younger yet.
let's pretend to be friends again -
_____we always wanted to be.
remember when i didn't know you?
_____let's pretend we never still,
then maybe this war will end for me -
_____i can pretend the same for you.
let's pretend the water is cool
_____and the sand doesn't burn our feet.
let's pretend to go on living -
_____because the rest of the world does.







daniel of naked and ashamed wrote this alternate/companion/branched poem also called let's pretend and so i thought you might like to read it if you enjoyed the original piece. daniel's version can be found here.

6 comments:

arch.memory said...

Oh my god, Katy; this is so beautiful it hurts!
Let's pretend...
I'll will read this to her over the phone tomorrow...

katy said...

thank you ashraf. do let me know how she responds. it hurt a little to write...

Anonymous said...

I am not sure how correctly I understood what is going on here. It is funny; I opened "Let's Pretend" and "The Bee Program" simultaneously and at first glance thought that I understood "Let's Pretend" perfectly and that I did not understand "The Bee Program." Now, it is the reverse.

Is your poem about being desperate to retrieve amnesia? Is it about trading memory for absence of pain? There is something at once sinister and in pain about that.

Love,
Khayyic Ahmad

katy said...

thank you jason

Anonymous said...

This is sweet and sad poem Cathy. It reminds me of a line from the song of Elvis Presley that says: “Honey, you’re lying when you said you love me…but I’d rather go on living without you!”

rch said...

Hi Katy,

This is very beautiful. I think we all have things that we gloss over because if we thought about it too much we'd go nuts, and you have captured that with poignant clarity. Thanks,

Bob