My phone doesn’t recognize me in the morning
My phone doesn’t recognize me in the morning
My boyfriend and I try to guess why.
Is it because the light is dimmer?
(It doesn’t seem to be)
Or I don’t have my glasses on?
(But when I wear contacts it has
no problem with those)
Is it because my face is smooshed
from the pillow?
Could be.
But I have a different theory.
I think that we change every night.
Disappear into our dreams
our imaginations, our childhood
where the monsters are real
and we cannot outrun them—
we are grasping for our voices
we are trying to scream
or, alternately
we are in a field of joy and sunlight
dancing with dragons and wildflowers
and everything we ever hoped was true, is
and everything bad comes untrue
And when we wake, we briefly hold, still, our child-features
And my phone searches for the adult Jessica it was programmed to know.
But computers cannot recognize the stuff of dreams.
And so I must enter the passcode
Proving myself with numbers instead of features
Until my face smooths over the wrinkles of fear, and hope
And becomes acceptable once again.