in oahu, i paddle across cerulean then silence my knees. lift my arms like someone had filled them with sand. call help. a deluge in my waiting mouth. i had flirted with so many tides already. i just wanted to see someone swim for me, wanted to watch them reach into wetness for my short salvation. a long-haired cousin wrests me from the water with her thick pubescent arms. i am a spindly sea star by her waist. i gasp for the air i already had.

~

my younger brother is an ostrich terrorizing me in this dream. i am running away from him, across a white field, where the weeds are white shadows. i am not fast enough. when the ostrich descends upon me, i feel a hand on my right temple. the arm dives into my eye socket, which is now a cavernous well of ink. when the hand emerges, my eye materializes and it is blue. i realize the hand was mine.

~

i wave the spoon like a glimmering flag before striking it against the smooth gray egg. chips of the shell flicker, float into the tiny cavity i had made. when i peer in the hole, the smallest duck embryo and the rubbery yolk. shhh, he’s sleeping. i excavate anyway, soon learning that i am allergic to eggs. at the sight of my blossoming lips, mother tosses me into the gray tide. when the rain begins, the whole world is a sheet of glass. i am devoured.