Raze the temple to the ground
Let there be no refuge in
This trackless desert, so that
The truth may be discovered
Raze the temple to the ground
Let there be no refuge in
This trackless desert, so that
The truth may be discovered
Your rose that grows in
Deepest dark, opens
Only to my touch
Once we walked among
The blossoming trees; fragrance
Enveloped us whole.
The sand dried beneath
My feet; I craned my neck to
See the crest, breathless.
She walks on winding
Waves; she cannot forget the
Sea; she knows chaos.
What beast would maim and
Butcher not for survival,
But macabre sport?
Let my joylessness
Migrate elsewhere, that I may
Begin life anew.
I dreamed I was a student or teacher, and had a bucket of rats that were tame and very good pets, as good or better than dogs. They had various patterns to their coats, more like hamsters.
I passed them around to the class, who petted them. I talked about the book “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.”
I remember we had several hamsters when I was growing up. When I was 13, for my science fair, my dad bought thirty white Sprague-Dawley rats for me to keep in the bathroom, to do an experiment about whether their learning would transfer from one maze to another, versus just the specific maze experience.
I was supposed to pet all the rats every day so that the experiment wasn’t confounded by anxiety towards humans.
I didn’t have much experience raising rodents. In their aquarium cage, they knocked over the water dish. Some of the rats got dehydrated, probably died, and were cannibalized by their fellows. I found bones and a tail.
I was horrified. Did I tell my Dad? I don’t remember. But I avoided them. My Dad got mad at me for not socializing them enough, but it was traumatizing.
I got a “Superior” ribbon for the science fair, but wasn’t selected for the State finals.
The dream probably springs from an insight I had yesterday, that I needed to be a super scientist to make up for my failings as a kid to my Dad. I’m a physician repeating my final year of residency, studying for my boards, which I’ve failed twice already. I’ve been pretty depressed for a few years now, and the dynamic with my Dad weighs on me, though he’s pretty supportive now.
The dream was probably some wish fulfillment, about how, since I didn’t socialize the rats, the experiment failed, so now I was making sure all the dream rats were socialized.
Not all of us were
Born to privilege. Some of us
Are just up from dirt.