Dream Journal
a tabby cat tries to swallow my knuckles.
my first love drives me in his car. I hear I’m supposed to die
at a place called Chicken Heaven. my teeth fall out.
I tell a joke about acid reflux. the cat never explains
the desperation to consume me. I fail multiple-choice tests.
I’m always in high school. I sit at the back
of the second violin section & the cellists begin
to wear their cello cases, the black material conforming
perfectly to their musical bodies. they say
it’s their costume for Halloween. my teeth fall out
& I try to shove them back in. my gums become their own
pink entity & start to rotate in my mouth.
I faint in a red bathroom. I suffocate on red gingham.
I tell someone in the bookstore why Manny Pacquiao lost
his Nike sponsorship & beg them not to buy the tie-dye shirts.
I’m at a picnic with my last love. he’s forgotten
we’re no longer in love & I can’t bring myself to break
his heart. then he remembers & for once, he’s so angry at me.
I’m two feet tall with no teeth left to lose.
my love looks at me & says he’ll do the dishes tonight.
our kitchen is smaller than me & I wake up in tears.
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Noreen Ocampo is a Filipino American writer and poet from metro Atlanta. Her collection, Not Flowers, won the 2021 Variant Literature Microchap Contest, and her poems can also most recently be found in Kissing Dynamite and Rejection Letters. She holds a BA in English from Emory University and begins her MFA at the University of Mississippi in the fall. Say hi on Twitter @maybenoreen!
