Why I shouldn't have fish as pets.

I have been having some weird dreams lately.  Maybe weird isn't even the right word . . . just really real dreams.  To the point where I remember reading emails that I can very clearly see in my head but I never received in real life.  It's kind of like that scene in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion where Michele takes a nap in the limo and dreams that she knows the formula for Post-its glue.  It's disturbing to wake up and realize you don't really know the formula.

I also have two recurring dreams.  One is about a tornado and the other is about pet fish.  The tornado dream I've come to believe signifies change, but the fish dream is messed up.  In the fish dream, I'm usually out with some friends and we go into a pet store.  I look at all the animals and then I decide to buy some awesome tropical fish.  At that moment I suddenly realize that I have had an aquarium of fish at home all this time and I haven't fed them for THREE YEARS.  I rush home, terrified of what I'm going to find-- the horrible gaping carcasses of fish staring at me with betrayal.  I get to the room with the aquarium and I'm afraid to turn on the light.  I dump a bunch of food into the tank as if that will make up for everything and then this enormous Piranha-type mutated fish leaps out of the murky water and snaps at me.  I barely get my arm away in time.  Now what does that mean?

In honor of dreams, I wrote about another familiar phenomenon:

Falling in Sleep

It disturbs us.
A nightmare we can't quite recall,
where a hint of evil lingers:
an apple that's too polished,
a clown whose grin is too wide,
an argument too easily won.

It happens when we think it won't.
in the No Man's Land of our minds,
and just as we're settling into our canoes
it's over the ledge,
hearts expanding, filling
each limb with rushing air,
until the bungee cord around our waists
takes back some slack and we bounce,
midair,
blood bubbling in our ears,
legs twitching as we wonder,
why didn't my heart burst?