Overhead Projector Focus Adjustment
I stopped writing about myself
Because they told me I didn't exist
They said they knew/know who I am/was
So I believed them instead of myself
Because it's what I'd always done.
We're in Andover-Morris
They're standing by the Apollo-Horizon
Forging transparencies from my life
"How'd they get these?"
Images of what I hadn't done
I wasn't in them.
I go along with it
This is a dissociative dream
Seeing the unfamiliar pictures
Unable to speak
One of those dreams where I can't talk
Sleep State Misperception?
Intrinsic Dyssomnia?
I stare at them, knowing their projections
Come from themselves
Not me
I wake up
And realize I've been grinding my teeth.
M.Y. Perle is co-founder and web designer of RQP. A PhD candidate at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, her dissertation focuses on comparative literature of identity formation in diasporic groups. She is the current editor of TERSE. Journal and lives in Pittsburgh.