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.

Why I hate insurance companies: 1

I had cobra from my job in 2009 and the insurance company refused my bills. Not one bill. Not once. EVERY BILL EVERY TIME: 1. my healthcare 2. my son’s healthcare 3. my daughter’s healthcare 4. my daughter’s orthodontia 5. my dentist 6. my son’s dentist. I had to call EVERY TIME to get them to pay. Calling an insurance company takes 25 or 30 minutes, right? Eventually I asked for customer service who first said it was my fault because “you probably paid the bill late”. I said, “No, I was on time every month.” Then customer service wouldn’t call me back. I finally called their COUNSELING HOTLINE, since it said I would be “paid” $30 to get counseled, and said, “MY LITTLE SISTER IS DYING OF BREAST CANCER AND THE THING THAT IS MOST STRESSING ME OUT IS YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY WON’T PAY THE COBRA BILLS AND I HAVE CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE OVER AND OVER AND THEY WON’T CALL ME BACK. HOW ABOUT YOU COUNSEL ME HOW TO DEAL WITH THAT!” And I cried. I got a call back from the head of customer service saying “Oh, it’s a computer glitch and we had you misfiled. We have fixed it.” They “misfile” people all the time, or drop patients if they get sick, or say the person didn’t pay on time. I HATE INSURANCE COMPANIES. Anyhow, be warned that insurance companies are there to earn money and will try to avoid paying you in all sorts of ways, including ways that are illegal.

We need single payer healthcare, medicare for all. If we all have healthcare, think of how many small businesses would start up. And why don’t we have single payer healthcare? I think the big corporations don’t want it.

Physicians for a National Healthcare Program: https://pnhp.org/

Medicare for all: https://medicare4all.org/

And my dear friends not on the road any more: http://madashelldoctors.com/

Who is the man in the photograph? I don’t know. This is an old tintype. They came from my Great Aunt, Esther White Parr, married to Russel Parr. Perhaps they are Parrs, because my Uncle Rob did not know any of the people in the four tintypes I have. My sister and I used them for portraits in our china doll houses. I hope he is not the CEO of an insurance corporation, but then, all the white collar white men tried to dress that way then.