I have this recurring dream that I rented a tape at the video store and never returned it

Now it’s closed down, but I still owe them the money

I never tell anyone about it, but one day they will come for me

Very in-character: every school year

I would borrow a book from the library 

and keep it in my backpack until summer vacation

“Librarians hate her,” would be the headline

She scribbles on the margins of books that don’t belong to her

just cheeky notes questioning the validity of assertions

Once I spent a whole afternoon erasing my notes

with a heavy heart, because other people’s illicit scribbles 

are the best part of library books

But, for the most part, I didn’t read the books I took from the library

I just let them stew in my backpack, so they got to travel a bit

like that octopus that Japanese artist picked up from the ocean in 2003

He took the octopus to see his cousins at the Tokyo open market

and then gave him back to the sea 

How bizarre, you know they can think

“Performance art with borrowed mollusks,” would be the headline 

Tell your friends to steer clear from fishing nets

Nestle your tentacles close to your hearts

lest they wish to grill them for their sushi

Extract the pulp from your octopus soul

to write meandering poems with your ink

plus a stolen feather, they’ll call it a quill

from a vulture or ostrich or songbird

I have this recurring fantasy of burying my head in the sand

like an ostrich, until I cannot hear anything but myself, unadulterated

like a cellphone inside a microwave

and “I am returned to whatever kennel truth is hanging out at these days,”

would be the headline.

----------------------------------------

Beatriz Seelaender is a writer from São Paulo, Brazil. You can find her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and loose musings all over the internet, especially if you follow her on twitter (@biaseelaender) or instagram (@slanderdawg). She lives in Rome, where she studies Classics at Sapienza University.