All Night She Dreams

A News Response Poem

All Night She Dreams

Of her identity being stolen
Numbers and dates
Pins and passwords
Her fingerprints leave a trace
Retinas displaced
Who is she 
If she is not herself

All night she dreams
Of thieves taking her likeness
Bones void of marrow 
Veins drained of blood
Accounts emptied
House stripped 
Who is she
Without identification

All night she dreams
Of being nameless  
Free of labels and narrative
An empty slate 
Brand new
They can take
All that she created
All that she earned
They can try to take
Her away from herself
But she is still there
Living and watching 

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Author’s Note: Who has access to your data? While identity theft has long been a growing crisis, this week’s news headlines were dominated by questions of who should have access to classified information and sensitive data in government systems. I wrote this poem in response to a cyber-security incident I experienced as well as those headlines.

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