Dreaming of You, Melissa Lozada-Oliva

★★★

A sporadic stream of consciousness collection of loosely labeled poems. Sometimes there are glimpses of a world that I can relate to and other times it twists into breaking the fourth wall and author self-reflections. Some of the notations of her childhood in Texas really spoke to me and my lived experience as if she was reading my journals, but this may not feel the same for most. My favorite of her musings were the gruesome, morbid ones of skeletons and corpses. And the moments where she seems to be processing the Selena-sized hole in her life and the grief of Selena’s passing because she represented so much to so many of us.

My favorite poem of the collection: 6’3” Looking for Something Casual that Has the Potential to Be Something More;)