Time to Pretend – MGMT
I write incredibly small. I think as a kid my self-esteem manifested in the font size of my handwriting, serving almost as encryption, should anyone ever be curious about the things swirling around in this crazy head of mine. I had forgotten this about myself, but once upon a time, I tried to be a poet. I have this journal from twenty years ago, filled with random musings and forced pentameter, so part of me is super glad that I eventually gave up on those pipe dreams and found a practical job. Let’s just say, life would be a bit more challenging, especially at this particular juncture in time, had my life gone that route. Anyways, I was procrastinating schoolwork over coffee, reading through it, and chuckling to myself at how annoying I was in my mid-twenties. I thought I had been over it backwards and forwards but turns out, tucked away in the void of the empty blank pages of this unfinished journal, was a poem I wrote. It is funny the cyclical nature of life’s lessons. I think even back then I knew that my kryptonite in life would be living an inauthentic life.
Here is the poem. My handwriting sucks, so I’ll transcribe here.
Faithful fact & truest conviction,
Erase a lie of the deepest fiction.
None to prove,
& none to know,
The mirror shows her greatest foe.
Goodbye sorrow, goodbye pain.
Goodbye storm, goodbye rain.
A smile unfaked
& hearty laughter,
Forbid the thoughts
Of past and after.
If only I had not ignored the warnings I clearly captured in these random thoughts of my youth. It reminded me of an MGMT song that plays in the first episode of The Magicians. Maybe I was fated to pretend. I hope not. I hope like the song says, “life can always start up anew”.
If My Life Had a Soundtrack 