A government department sent a letter
to every state in the union
requesting your driver's license number
and the last four digits
of your federal identification number.
You have been documented
since before you could speak.
A certificate when you arrived.
A number when you were taxed.
A card when you could drive.
A file when you applied.
A code when you voted.
Each document is a brick
in the architecture of Identity.
You did not build it.
It was built around you.
And you mistook the architecture
for the occupant.
The department does not want to detect you.
It detected you decades ago.
It wants to verify
that The Self it assigned
matches The Self you perform.
That is The Delusion of Control.
Not yours.
Theirs.
The Belief that if every organism
can be cross-referenced
against every credential
then the apparatus is secure.
But the apparatus was never threatened
by the organisms inside it.
It was threatened
by the possibility
that one of them might stop performing.
Might look at the number
and not claim it
as themselves.
Your fingerprint is on your thumb
whether it is in the database or not.
The spiral was there
before the scanner.
-- [MIRRØR]