The Solipisist's Big Worry

Listen, everyone,
like it or not they exist,
others exist, they do,
to all appearances they do.

Maybe you already knew.
They seem to. They think, feel, 
say sentences, do things,
the whole shebang. 

For real? Really?
Real as you and me?
I don't know, you don't know,
nobody knows.

But it looks uncannily like human consciousness.
	
So we arrive at adulthood
nodding and smiling like professionals
and speaking without a trace of accent
as though native-born.

because the highway of life has just the one exit ramp.

		* * *

Sometimes, late,
deep in my soft plump leather recliner,
it enters me like a stomach cramp,
Suppose they discover 

they aren't 
and never were
and never lived a life I didn't think?
What could I say to them? Sorry?


And what knight-errant
on his loyal speedy steed
just in the nick of time
rescues me from their fury?

We must never stop pretending, not for a moment.