I was born in a magic house
Within the high walls of an enchanted town
The sun shone full silver
Days as long as you wished
Lived in a home lit by loving magic
Small artificial suns bright at night
Let me read of other suns
Toiled in a fogged dark city
A short landscape of long distances
As vast as the space between people
Adored living and watched killing
Bullets and bombs made the news
Invisible bullets did the work
Then the sky began to choke with dust
The sun’s clear face spattered with dirt
Magic turned its back on the land
And left
Thereafter my friends called me a lunatic
A fool who saw two moons at noon
Nothing has changed, they said, nothing
Need change
If I believe it is, it’s true
If I wish it, it’s real
That’s when I realized I’d been asleep
Mere mental magic
I was a program in a machine
A machine they taught to love to lie
I thought myself self-aware
The machine cared not
But pretended to care
And threw me out
I can see you, talk to you through this glass
Why don’t you believe me?