Every man was a weapon. I, a vegetarian turned cannibal to survive their machetes and unzipped denim.

What does it mean when the dream version of a gentle lover from your past hunts you with a knife and a Bible

in a war-torn country? Who can you trust in a kidnapping when everyone giving you orders—even the one begging you to trust them,

eat the plum you’re supposed to feed them but hide the pit—are men? In the dream, I eat fried octopus, and I like it. In the next dream,

everyone around me gets food poisoning except for me and the man who gave me his fruit’s flesh, and that’s how I finally knew I could trust him,

that this was the only escape, that even if the clean-shaven men in their bullet proof vests and official government ships were actually there

to rescue us, I would follow this one man in the opposite direction, even if it lead to my death. If my heart was a night sky, he was my constellation.

I feel like my brain is just now processing old traumas on overload while I sleep ever since I started EMDR therapy. Only

I don’t know which traumas are playing themselves out. I think my brain—giddy on every thread of connection and “Good job, brain!"—is just

inventing them now. I rarely finish a dream. I keep telling myself to write them down, but either I can’t remember or can’t bear to relive them.

I only live the worst bits, wake up without closure.

Prompts used (tags are the poets’ IG handles):

@angelealowes - “I had too much to dream last night” @kaytpoems - “if my heart is a night sky, you were a constellation” @itsashenelthing - “the threads of my existence” + “vegetarian turned cannibal”