i used to dream in scenes, but now when i wake up all i remember are bursts of images, almost like clicking through a camera roll too fast. i tried to lean into that when pulling these fragments together into a poem, and it came out a little jarring, as i usually try to write a little more cohesively, but i enjoyed the challenge of moving out of my comfort zone :)
as promised! a poem I wrote in response to the actual dream i had on april 5 (documented above):
When I Was A Spider
I should not be surprised
I ache. Breakfast is expired
cake. Too much coffee.
Couldn’t sleep. The melatonin
gave me strange dreams. In it,
someone’s dad gave me advice:
Does a snail’s shell protect?
Trick question. I climbed
the wall like a spider instead.
Later, he said: Yes,
but it’s also how they steam
alive. The shell keeps
the deadly heat inside.
All this to tell me– what?
I wasn’t sure. My spider legs
ticked against the earthen wall.
Get a boyfriend or something
like that. Let a crack of light
into your shell. Was that right?
I couldn’t tell. Remember,
I was not a snail. Or even
a soft-shelled girl. I had
eight legs with hairs to hear.
A carapace and
no need for ears.
Here's two dream poems from my weird week.
"dodging"
when we were undercover at dinner
trying to put seat belts on as an explosion
zoomed down the conversational freeway
straight for us,
your phone screen kept flipping,
vertical then horizontal, like a spasming
mcdonalds drive thru
bumper to bumper spiky energy rushing
to obliterate all our nuggets,
which made it harder for me to explain myself
to the tarantula by the stairs and
save the girl in flip flops who wasn’t walking away,
distracted as she was by the pickle of us all
shaking our bottles
to prove our covid medicine was on us,
so when she tried to smoosh the tarantula
in her bare feet like little makeshift guns
shooting twice and missing, and each time
hard splinters cried in my chest, obviously
i needed to think a little harder to say,
oh, good dodging
to the tarantula
---------------
"Trying to Say What I Mean"
A magnificent horse drips brown gloss
over my hands as I hold his warm
head to mine. Eye to eye we stay,
which allows me to throw my heart over
the rims of his eyes and let the all of it fall
for a long time, I stay eye to eye with this
horse, carrying all that I have over to him,
throwing the all of it into his bottomless eye
which stays open, a huge whale mouth
yawning out from a dark, deep sea.
i used to dream in scenes, but now when i wake up all i remember are bursts of images, almost like clicking through a camera roll too fast. i tried to lean into that when pulling these fragments together into a poem, and it came out a little jarring, as i usually try to write a little more cohesively, but i enjoyed the challenge of moving out of my comfort zone :)
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"shatter"
cotton candy brush swirling across the sky
rot my teeth with your spun sugar
spindly fingers pull them out
leaving hollow cavities, fill them with clouds
bite down, a sickening desire
//
blooming poppies
bright swaying across the field
knife teasing at the stalk, skin splitting
breathe deep, sinking down
closing eyes, dark pooling up from within
//
air escaping an eternal trap
colder every passing second
ice scraping the inside of my throat
swallowing fragile shards of glass
throat aching, I shatter