

I had a dream that I was in the bath tub when a big, fuzzy black spider jumps into the bath with me. I decide to get rid of it by draining the water, making sure the spider goes down the drain.
I think the spider is dead and gone and get out of the bath, but then I hear a female voice singing “We Shall Overcome” from what sounds like a long distance away. I follow the sound to the drain and watch as the spider slowly climbs up and out of the drain, still singing about overcoming.
Money and greed a want or a need? Days spent chasing dollars robs life of vibrant colors. Nights alone, awash in possessions imprisons the brain with lonely obsessions. A lifetime building physical wealth takes a toll on mental health.
Please let me go please let me go let me flicker out of existence for a while Let this heart still let this mind be silenced let these feelings fade until I can bear to face them again.
Why am I leaving?
No, I’m not traveling back in time to stop Hitler.
Nope, not Mao either.
Yeah, that whole holocaust thing was a disaster, but that’s not my assignment.
Nope, I’m not allowed to save JFK or MLK, even if I’d love to meet those two.
Yes, stopping slavery earlier would be noble, as would working to prevent the coming climate disaster.
Unfortunately, I’m being paid to go mess with history for one reason and one reason only…to stop the discontinuation of Cap’n Crunch Choco Donuts. Bezos loves his cereal.
Red roses. A sign of romantic interest, elegant sensuality, and passionate love.
Yes, I have received red roses, but mine weren’t accompanied by affection, butterflies fluttering around my stomach, or flirtatious kisses and caresses.
Mine came with feminine shame, a statement of sexual entitlement, and a paranoia I just can’t shake. I fear I see him in the cereal aisle while picking out my Cheerios. I peek over my shoulder again and again as I walk the driveway to my mailbox. I wake in the predawn, still riding the waves of a nightmare that bleeds into waking reality.
All because of red roses.
Is there meaning here? I stare into space oblivious to all but my own numbness, hoping for a call - a beckoning voice to draw me back from the edge of my self-imposed exile. Drop the feathery gauze from these old, battered lenses and push me if necessary out of the warm niche carved long ago in this mount of regret.
Alone in her mother’s house, she wandered the silent, lifeless rooms, looking for remnants of something she knew she would never find, as it had never actually existed. Yet, she still searched diligently for some secret token, some magical whisper, some buried acknowledgement that what she had always foolishly longed for and sought out just might have had even the slightest basis in reality. Unsurprisingly, in the end, she left empty-handed one last time.