Dreams from a Parallel Universe

One night, I dream I am an
Octopus. My womanly hips bulbous and
slick with tentacles like serpentine
limbs made to seize
and flex.

I dream a man wakes up
and takes the rollers from his hair, and
stuffs his feet into three-inch heels,
and feeds the baby
with his breast
and cooks the eggs, ham, pancakes
sizzling on the stove top
screaming for his attention:
It is 6 AM.

I dream I almost feel sorry for the guy…
my two hopeless human hands
weren’t even enough to service a full man.
I feel the eight tendrils arching hungrily,
beckoned by a world with no limits.

I dream a man stands in the toiletries aisle
paying the tithe for a packed cotton tube,
plugging a red ocean pouring from between his legs.
I am the octopus in the store, eying him tensely,
it’s probably his time of the month…
unsure of how to handle a man
when he bleeds.

But he bleeds like an oil spill,
a sea of vermillion flushes over the earth—
and it seeps into groundwater.
The land is an ocean, red with
octopuses spangling the sea.

I let out a small laugh in my sleep, and

I wake once more, in my silver cage.

back to issue

Molly Zhu is a new poet and she lives in Brooklyn, New York. For her day job, she is a corporate attorney and in her free time, she loves thinking about words and reading and eating. She has previously published in the Rising Phoenix Review, the Ghost City Press, and 805 Lit + Art. You can find her on instagram at: @mlz316