Let's

Let’s pretend this world isn’t real!
Nothing is real!

Let’s be nihilists and
rot away with time
like corpses under
a madman’s floorboards.

Let’s twiddle our thumbs,
complacent in the truth
that we’re powerless in life —
just like everyone else.
Let’s be different and hope for power,
but doesn’t hopeful define insane?

Let’s find a pattern to our thoughts —
individually convoluted,
collectively cancerous.
Let’s close our eyes to the outside world –
temporarily numb,
in utero to true pain —
awaiting rebirth to danger.

Let’s seek the treatment they wish to give –
submit to pharmaceuticals,
electroconvulsive therapy,
psychoanalysis.
Let’s spend our days like cartoon zombies,
lurking through life, thoughtless . . .
romping aimlessly through fields of daffodils.
Oh, the connotations of happiness and innocence!

Let’s breathe the toxic air in meditation.
It seeps into our lungs,
poisoning us.
Let’s pretend the world
isn’t suffocating us.

Let’s inhale, exhale; inhale, exhale.
After a break from reality,
could we sigh a breath
of relief?