What I said from another body in a dream: What I’ve brought to the new art is my name, known only by its syllables.

I figured out the pet bathroom spider I give water to every night is a desert recluse, so I now have a pet backyard spider.

I’m tired of barely treading water while folks laugh from the shore. My whole life, this water. My whole life, that shore.

I’m renaming the Pouch of Douglas the Pouch of Dana. Deal with it.

My sleep score was an all-time low of 65, so I’ll just be over here getting crushed to death by air.

Because so many folks conflate the vagina and vulva, I’ve decided to start calling the whole kit and caboodle the vavu.

My face is always an overinflated balloon or an underinflated balloon. The days of my face being a properly inflated balloon are behind me.

Them: I’m a huge supporter of the Constitution.

Me: Quote any of it.

Them:

I dreamed I was a dodo on the island of Mauritius twerking on the beach to the song “Chris Jennings Is My Blood Boy.”

Lines from a dream:

because toys die outside
of graves and there are no
burials for childhood

Half awake, I misread something as: “Our President is an orange BarcaLounger.”

Somehow, I’ve written a song titled “Scott Jennings Is My Blood Boy,” and I rather like it.

Only DEVO will get me through this panfuckalypse.

I wanna end this prophylactic tour / Afraid that no-one around me / Understands my potato / Think I’m only a spud boy / Looking for a real tomato — DEVO

Nothing in the universe is stupider than a human being who has forgotten human beings are part of the universe.

I dreamed I went into a forever poetry residency in a strange building in Kansas City that looked small from the outside but whose floors each opened to a different continent. Not a rendering or ensmallening of a continent. The actual continent. I liked the floors where I could access deserts.* There was a secret floor that was the moon. A woman was there who seemed like God. A man was there who seemed like an old man. He gave me paper so I could print my poems. He gave me a wrap so I wouldn’t go hungry.

* That’s all the floors, by the way, but I didn’t realize that in the dream.

I watched videos all day of foxes eating carrots is how I am.

When belonging is dependent on self-censorship and self-effacement—on weaving someone else’s shame and guilt into fabric and wearing it like a garment—it’s not belonging.

The old dump is on fire near our home. That sounds about right.

True pathology is systemic.

I don’t burn bridges, but I know when they’re on fire.

There’s not a room I can enter here in Southern Utah that is safe, welcoming, and accepting of me and folks like me.

I expect few to be kind, even fewer to be supportive, and next to none to be understanding.

There is a TOWN in MISSOURI named LITHIUM? Why don’t I live there?

Nothing makes me feel safer than a local man with a Confederate flag for his profile photo in my friend suggestions on Facebook.

Watching a video of someone meticulously cleaning their home and vibing hard on it is how I am.

Memes: stereotyping those with mental-health issues since the invention of memes.

Ranking my body fluids by viscosity is how I am.

Who’s playing all these sad songs oh I am is how I am.

I divide the world into two parts: vitriol and love. They’re like curtains, these parts, both heavy. I stand between them. Which one I touch is up to me. Which one you are is up to you.

My eyelashes are too heavy is how I am.

Listening to Alphaville is how I am.

Eating a block of cheese is how I am.

It is always Black Sunday in my ancestral lungs.

I smell like salt if salt smelled like fear.

I have to find a cute name to call my husband so he’ll go get zero sugar soda for me right when he wakes up. How about Soda Daddy?

Sometimes, a poem is just telling you something you didn’t know but should know.

When I read your poems, today is yesterday is always.

I could sit up in bed so I don’t spill zero sugar vanilla Coke on my chest when I take a sip then have to sop it up with my tank top in order to avoid getting out of bed like a functional adult and properly cleaning myself up, but why? This seems fine. Just fine.

We need to decolonize our language. — Nawal El Saadawi

And we need to decolonize, decapitalize, depoliticize, and debiomedicalize our language around mental health. Some schools of thought maintain that language creates thought, so changing language changes thought. I would argue that bringing language into awareness rather than simply using it unexamined leads to thinking, an active process we need to live meaningfully, not just exist, perpetuate, survive.

Describe your relationship in two words.

Me: Romantic companionship.

Him: Huggy baby.

Upon waking.

Me to Myself: Good morning. Let’s have a great day!

Also Me: [begins sobbing]

How it’s going.

Me: Give me the strength to get through this Monday.

Him: It’s Friday.

I dreamed someone in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, was either trying to create or destroy the world.