I walk through the mall being viewed and reviewed.
It troubles me to know that for a moment
my life might be a figment of a stranger’s imagination.
I do not feel comfortable in your version of me.
You fictionalize. You invent. You construe.
You fantasize real people. I do too.
For instance,
you have assigned me a wife and two kids.
I do have a wife and two kids,
but not the ones you assigned.
A woman imagines me with a dog,
but not my dog.
My real dog is mongrel mutt.
My dog in her imagination is a French bull dog.
I don’t appreciate the pretentious upgrade.
Neither does my dog.
I walk over to a man in a baseball cap
to offer a plan for fantasy exchange.
I’ll tell him what I am imagining about his life
if he tells me what he is imagining about mine.
I stop just in time to save myself embarrassment.
What if I am the only one imagining?