(To a SPECIAL friend)

Autopsychography - Fernando Pessoa

The poet is a pretender,
who pretends so completely
he even pretends to pain
the pain he really feels.

And those who read what he writes,
reading of pain, feel truly
neither of those pains he has,
but what they themselves have not.

So round its track goes
wheeling, to entertain our reason,
this string of carriages
they call the heart.