Published in Overland Issue 223 Winter 2016 · Uncategorized There is repetition Fiona Wright In the dream, there is repetition In the dream, I cannot make them understand In the dream, my fingertips itch, and they redden – In the dream, there is the dream of colour. In the dream, I trap a pigeon in the ceiling In the dream they tell me don’t tell me your dreams In the dream the objects move when I’m not looking In the dream, I run a bath that overfills and in the dream, it leaves a tidemark like a sock around my ankle. In the dream, I watch them watch me In the dream, I speak of solitude In the dream I do not dare hold out my hands. In the dream, I am amphibious, I see my breath fog up the window. In the dream I know I dream but cannot wake. In the dream, I hide my face within the bathroom mirror In the dream the bed sheets twist around my ankle In the dream I cannot make them understand. Read the rest of Overland 223 – If you liked this article, please subscribe or donate. Fiona Wright Fiona Wright’s new essay collection is The World Was Whole (Giramondo, 2018). Her first book of essays Small Acts of Disappearance won the 2016 Kibble Award and the Queensland Literary Award for nonfiction, and her poetry collections are Knuckled and Domestic Interior. More by Fiona Wright › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 10 April 202610 April 2026 · open letter Open letter: RMIT staff and students oppose disciplinary action against Gemma Seymour over video opposing links to weapons ties RMIT University Staff and Students Freedom of speech and expression is absolutely vital in academic institutions. Students who engage in activism should not be punished for doing so, and discipline procedures are not there to be abused as a tool of intimidation. We call for the disciplinary process against Gemma to cease immediately. 9 April 202610 April 2026 · CoPower Against the will to engineer: Richard King’s Brave New Wild Ben Brooker The response demanded of us in the twenty-first century must operate at the level of metaphysics as well as the material, addressing our underlying assumptions about the instrumentalisation of nature and what constitutes a meaningful life in the face of technology’s relentless advance. To neglect that deeper terrain is to concede, in advance, the very ground on which our resistance to the machine must stand.
