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With each finger, I pressed on black ink, and one by one placed them on the transmitting screen. Following instruction, I rolled each finger, left to right, and slow—every quarter inch of skin recorded. On the display, perfect fingerprints glowing. And for the picture, I stared straight, rose my back, in position, like how in my elementary school orchestra we sat at the edge of our seats and looked to the audience. Prove it, they said. Anticipating instruction, I took off my glasses so the camera could capture my eyes and the computer record their shape and place in relation to my nose and ears in relation to other’s noses and ears. Have me all! Click the camera! And I will sit, following instructions like my school pictures, twelve years of pictures. On the screen, the unchangeable face of mine glowing, like how I said the morning announcements, like how I led the pledge of allegiance. Raise your back, hand on heart, think of America and so I thought of America. The click of the camera. My performance, curtains flowing. Prove it, they said. On the screen, in cursive—my child-like signature made solemn. DREAMers mark themselves, our mired existence staining our fingertips. DREAMers mark themselves, in hopes of proving life like a second birth certificate. DREAMers mark themselves, thinking of America, the grassy fields of their schoolyard, my hand clutched to my heart, the dream I held against everything else, I now say prove it, America, prove it.
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