Soviet Union

I am the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile- that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in cartoons- will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party or some picnic in the park, the one who looks vibrant and shimmery, but who is in fact remarkably insignificant and soon going to be gone. When you look at that picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because everyday that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible, getting covered over more thickly with darkness, coats and coats of darkness that are going to suffocate me in the sweltering heat of the summer sun that I can't even see anymore, even though I can feel it burn.