---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Dear Reader” Down in the Dirt, v155 (the March 2018 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book At Midnight the Down in the Dirt Jan.-Apr. 2018 collection book		get the 418 page Jan.-Apr. 2018 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Mistaken Identity

M.C. Rydel

I am always mistaken for someone else.
People walk up to me and call me names
Nowhere near my own.
I’ve been Bill, Bob, Ray, Eddie, Pete, and Swede.
Once a woman thought me her Senator
As he and I do, in fact, look alike,

But a Senator would not travel without
Three staff members, a security detail,
And maybe a reporter or two. Think it through.
Once, taking a short cut through campus,
A Muslim woman in a hijab
Mistook me for her brother’s academic advisor.

Another time, some little kid followed me
In line for a roller coaster ride
And held the hem of my jacket as if I were his father.
Last night, a stranger face timed me by mistake
Thinking I looked like his cousin,
Insisting I still owed him something.

I spend my life looking like someone
Who looks like me.
Subway rides, coffeehouses, benches by the beach,
These settings present opportunities for confusion.
How can I avoid being in public?
I can’t, and I really don’t want to.

I’ve even been detained for eight hours in a small room
By customs agents at Chicago O’Hare
Because I looked like a Russian named Joseph,
I have been blamed, praised, lectured,
Loved, challenged, cajoled, dined, dated,
And married to people who mistake me for someone else.

People see the person they want to see in me.
Total strangers will eventually show up to my wake.
Two squads of gravediggers will meet at Plot 549.
The saints will make me wait a year in Limbo
Until they can verify exactly who I am,
And send my reincarnated soul to a completely different planet.

I am always mistaken for someone else.
Sometimes I carry my DNA sample
Just to make it through another day.
Even that does not convince the certain:
Certain that I am who they think I am
And not the person that I really want to be.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...