I brought Reality outside,
So She could look around with me;
But everywhere I hap’d to gaze,
She wouldn’t see what I would see.
A city street – a simple thing –
To Her, a great complexity.

Where I saw disconnected things,
She saw one joined totality;
‘Twas strange, and quite uncomfortable,
This fearsome actuality —
A world that isn’t mine at all,
When seen as by Reality.

I took Her back to my hotel,
And left her there to sleep the day;
For I have work to do, and She
Would not be much help anyway.
For oft, my waking work is this:
To keep Reality at bay.

And now, upon the city street,
I see again as through my lens;
Perspective locked within the walls
Of I-know-now and I-knew-then.
The choices that we make are Real,
And on them, happiness depends —

But how Reality is shaped?
To claim I know
Is just
Pretend