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Dream stealer

I am taking your dreams because you don’t want them.
You don’t want him. Your small child.
You let him out to play with me, for a while.
But you say you you are always happy.
You say things are perfect.
You say our friendship is forever.
Then you start to back away.
You take music first: I can’t sing along.
You stop teaching me your instrument.
You stop me from listening to practice.
You sing to me on my guitar
but you never listen.

You keep me from your friends.
You keep me from your family.
You don’t want to say
that you love me as a friend.

The connection dies as you hack parts away.

Only the beach is left.
Your small child plays and laughs with me
at the beach.
And that is gone too.

I am hurt. I block the connection for a year.

A year is gone.
You won’t come back.
You can’t come back.
I do not want you back.
But I open the connection.
I want your small child
and all the monsters you keep hidden.
Bears and monsters, come.
Come with the small child and play.

Is it unethical to steal a soul
if it is not loved?
If it is not listened to?
If it is trapped and frightened?

I am stealing your dreams because you don’t want them.
And I do.

___________________

I look for dream stealer myths. Not a succubus. Nor a dream weaver. Something else. Maybe something that is not textbook. Or a kitsune?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: textbook.

I took the photograph on North Beach yesterday.

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Rock rasp

There is a raspy sound when the beach is pebbles and the waves wash in and they rasp together. It is a singing clicking rasp. Beautiful!

I walk Marrowstone Island early yesterday, since there is a very low tide in the morning and it was sunny and gorgeous. The clear agates light up.

This one is clear in the center. I have to dig it out of the mud flat with another rock.

Turn again.

There, isn’t it beautiful with the light shining through?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: raspy.

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Barbie stole

The cats find this in my house and carry it around. I had Barbies in the 1970s. You can see the tag in this picture. Barbie/Mattel. The stole is made of rabbit fur with a nylon lining. Very 1970s, since I doubt Mattel would sell rabbit fur as a Barbie accessory now. The cats think it is fabulous.

The doll holding it is not a Barbie. It is a Get Real Girl, who has more normal proportions and normal feet. This one came with a backpack, hiking clothes and all she needs for camping. She is from the early 2000s. She’s better at driving the ambulance than the Barbies because her joints are much more fluid.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: stole.

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The Extroverted Feeler and Barbie

With all the fuss over the Barbie Movie, I am thinking about Barbie. This takes place in the 1990s. I wrote it in 2018.

When my extroverted feeler son is four, he announces that he wants a Barbie for Christmas. Hmmm, I think.

I tell my mother. She sends him a Barbie. Blonde hair to her ankles and in an itsy bitsy blue glitter bikini. My son names her Pocahontas.

Back to work in January. On the first day back to daycare, my son is searching for something. “Mom?”

I am rushing around getting ready for work.

“Where is my backpack?” He has a small pink backpack with shiny gems pasted on it. We moved from Portland, Oregon to Alamosa, Colorado. All the kids in the Portland parent run daycare insisted on pink jelly sandals, both girls and boys. My son has stopped wearing pink immediately when he goes to the Colorado daycare.

I find the backpack. He stuffs the Barbie in headfirst, satisfied. Hmmm, I think. Taking Barbie to daycare. I take him to daycare and then stand and watch. He is working the room. He goes to a girl, says “Look!” and holds the backpack so she can see inside.

That evening I ask him. “Who did you show the Barbie to?”

“I showed it to Anna and Marni and Becka and Marie,” he says.

“Did you show the Barbie to any boys?”

“Mom!” he says with scorn. “You don’t show Barbies to boys!”

________________________

The Barbie ambulance opens out into a clinic. Twin one, on the Get Real Girl’s lap, has bright red cheeks. Probably parvovirus. Twin two in the cradle has no rash. If I had worn heels like this Dr. Barbie while working, I would have never made it through a day!