PANOPTICON

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In the panopticon, dreams are always
television glow & projector screen. You know,
monitored, echoed. We are washed
in transcripts, in Freud’s wish
fulfillment, Jung’s dream speak, threat
simulations—towers & spider silks & snake-
skinned lullabies. The Sng’oi believe
that dream selves are the most real,
our consciousness nothing but the moment
light becomes shadow. In the panopticon,
no angle goes unseen, no first-aid
kits for delight, no designated shelter-
in-place zones from tornadoes
or angry words. Our heads nothing but giant
eyes & surveillance cameras, white noise
recorded & saved for replay
or sleep-aids later. In the panopticon, this is
currency: who hit who, who whispered escape
& when, which snitches got stitches, who
dreams of the world as it is & the world
as it could be. Who is stone. Every inmate
a guard or pseudoscientist cataloguing
field notes for comparison, spinning
symbolic comfort, spindles waiting
for Rumpelstiltskin riddles.
Someone still dreams
they failed algebra, foiled by
quadratic equations, forced into
teen bodies with belly button rings
despite Ph.Ds. Someone else is always in
that space between light & shadow.
Someone is lost in the Hyatt
or the Mall of America. Someone has circled
all of the above as their answer. One way
or another, we all live in our dead—
dead skins, dead jitterbugs,
dead grandmothers’ houses
but no matter how many
times you cup your hands, those
grandmothers are still spilling down

stairs. In the panopticon, everyone
has imposter syndrome
but when we find ourselves in everyone
else’s dreams, how will we know
which are our own.