hamster head - 1998

She dreamed last night of riding elephants through an ocean Crayola Blue and this morning she wonders what it means. If it even means anything. She's sure there must be some significance. Or at least she hopes. Because the hamster in her head, away for a while is back and running his wheel incessantly. She wants him to stop and sleep and dream hamster dreams and leave her some silence for productive production. As it is, she runs with him, counting her steps. She truly hates the running, the tedious jogging. Cages, too.

The same song flusters, dissonant through her, through her day. All day. And the next. And for countless following weeks. She's fearful of the years it could play, that the hamster will run Everready steady. (Is this how people go insane?) She'd prefer apathy and has attempted aromatherapy most recently to assuage the rodent. To sooth him. But it doesn't seem to work.

She likes the word, "sooth" rolling smooth through the mouth, aloe gel on sun-scorched skin. Remembers her mother's small hands sliding slick across her back to cool the burn after a day at the beach. She'd fogotten the SPF. Left it back on land next to the lemonade. Even after being reminded. Her own folly, but waves waved and she was scared she'd miss the big one. She's always been a bit single-minded.

The constant screech and click tip her off that something's amiss and so she searches, swimming through wax-drawn seas and in big bowls of alphabet soup, makes love to vice-presidents and has tea with her dead grandmothers. Sometimes she can't remember with whom she did exactly what and then she worries, because she's sure there's a point. Or at least she hopes.